


Unconquerable Soul

by scarletseeker113



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A lot of shipping, Dueling, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 73,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletseeker113/pseuds/scarletseeker113
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death Eaters keep coming after Lily, the wizarding war is getting worse, teachers are giving James mountains of homework in order to prepare for N.E.W.T.s, he and the Marauders need to plan pranks on the Slytherins, and on top of everything else Lily still won't go out with him.</p><p>(Starts at the end of their fifth year.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mudblood

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I do not own any of these characters, and this world belongs to the Queen herself and I am just a humble fan who cannot stop herself from speaking back to this world. (Also this chapter contains dialogue written by J.K. Rowling, which belongs to her. I am simply using it to further my own plot.)

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was an unusual school for unusual people. James Potter started his first year with all the other eleven year olds as a perfectly normal unusual boy.

He was a good wizard, James had a particular knack for jinxes and hexes. He used his talent to torment his classmates endlessly. It was curious how so many events seemed to center around this normally unusual boy as his Hogwarts career started to close.

At the moment though, he was concentrating on sprinting to the Owlery. James had forgotten his mum’s birthday. He had written a letter in the common room this morning, when he should have been studying for his Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. which was today. 

He picked the owl that looked the fastest and tied his letter to it’s leg. Then he threw it out the window. The brown owl looked back at him reproachfully before taking off. 

James turned to run back to the common room, but voices came floating in from the hallway, and he paused. 

“I told the Mudblood I’d go to Hogsmeade with her this weekend,” It sounded like Snape’s voice. James’s hand plunged into his robes immediately. His fingers were just tightening around his wand when a second voice came.

“What, Lily? Blow her off. We have more important things to see to.”

“I know,” Snape answered.

They turned into the Owlery, and James had half a mind to start hexing them immediately. But there were two of them, and he was good, but he wasn’t that good. So he swept past them without a word. Anger was pumping through him though. He couldn’t hear anything as he ran up to the Gryffindor common room to get his bag. 

How _dare_ he call her a Mudblood. 

Sparks shot out of the end of his wand as James ran along. He hadn’t even noticed that he had taken it out. He stuffed it back in his robes so that Lupin wouldn’t ask him why he had it out. He would assume that James had broken some rules, which wasn’t an unfair assumption, but now wasn’t the time for it. 

James approached the Fat Lady and gave the password (“animagus”) and then climbed through the portrait hole. He crossed the room to where Sirius, Remus, and Peter were sitting. 

“Hey, Prongs,” Sirius said as he leaned back in his chair. He had a worried look on his face.

“What’s going on?” James asked.

“Slytherin’s might be up to something,” Wormtail said, making his voice anxious. His voice was always anxious.

“Yeah, I heard Snape talking about that. They have something to do this weekend. But we can’t worry about that now, we’ve got exams!” James grinned at them all like an idiot.  He was really trying not to give into the anger that was still pounding through his ears.

“You saw Snape and didn’t hex him?” Sirius let his chair fall to the ground with a bang, emphasizing his shock.

“He had Mulciber with him.”

“Mulciber is an idiot,” Sirius waved that aside.

“And we have an exam in ten minutes and I can’t be in the infirmary for that.” James finished, talking over his best friend. 

“Common sense from you James?” Remus asked as he poured over his notes. “How refreshing,” he finished drily.

James rolled his eyes. “Let’s go.”

They made their way down the stairs to the great hall. The room had had the four house tables cleared from them and they were full of individual desks instead. The four of them made their way through the tightly packed desks to their seats, and when Flitwick flipped the hourglass over, James bent his head dutifully to the first question.

_What is the incantation to produce a patronus charm?_

The heat from the room was pressing in on James, and all he could hear was the word _mudblood_ pound through his ears. And that was who Lily chose to be her friend?

James answered most of the questions on the test automatically, his hand taking over for him when his mind wandered. There were occasions when he caught himself staring at the ceiling, thinking about Lily and hexing Snape. 

But then he gathered himself and continued on with the test. 

*   *   *  

“I’m bored,” Sirius complained. “I wish it was full moon.” 

James agreed silently, he wanted nothing more than to shift forms and run around the grounds, but he knew how much Mooney hated that time.

“You might,” Lupin said while looking through his book. “We’ve still got Transfiguration, if you’re bored you could test me. . . Here.” He started to hand the book to Sirius.

Sirius made a scathing noise. “I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all.”

James looked up and saw Severus Snape sitting under the shade of a bush a little ways from him. A cruel smile played at the edge of his lips. He shouldn’t.

But he would.

“This’ll liven you up, Padfoot,” he said softly. “Look who it is . . .”

Sirius turned around and then froze as he watched as Snape stand up and start to put his O.W.L. papers back in his bag.

“Excellent,” Sirius hissed. “ _Snivellus._ ”

James stood up, Sirius stood with him. Wormtail looked at both of them with an anticipatory expression on his face. Lupin suddenly became very interested in his book, but he was staring fixedly at one point on the page.

“All right, Snivellus? James asked loudly.

Immediately Snape dropped his bag and pulled his wand from his robes. James shouted, “ _Expelliarmus!”_

Severus’s wand flew into the air and fell in the grass behind him. Sirius laughed at James’s elbow. Then he raised his own wand and shouted, “ _Impedimeta!_ ” As Snape dived for his wand, Snape was knocked off his feet and thrown backwards.

It wasn’t very fair, James thought, two against one. 

Students had started to gather. Some of them looked entertained, and others looked apprehensive.

Snape was laying on the ground from where Sirius’s charm had landed him. With their wands raised, James and Sirius walked towards him. James was looking at the water’s edge occasionally, to see if Lily was going to come. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to see this or not.

“How’d the exam go, Snivelly?” James asked.

“I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment,” said Sirius viciously. “There’ll be great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word.”

Several people around the circle laughed. Sirius’s eyes flicked to where a group of girls were standing and the edge of his mouth turned up.

Snape was trying to get up, but Sirius’s magic was still working, so the most he could do was struggle weakly. 

“You- wait,” he said breathing heavily. “You-wait. . . .’

“Wait for what?” Sirius asked calmly. “What are you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?”

But to James, it sounded like Snape was referring to whatever the Slytherin’s were planning for this weekend.

Snape cursed, hexes and swearwords both coming out of his mouth.

James looked down at him, making eye contact and letting his fury shine through his eyes.

_Mudblood._

“Wash out your mouth,” he said coldly. “ _Scourigfy.”_

Pink soap bubbles started to froth from Snape’s lips. 

“Leave him ALONE!” 

James’s hand jumped to rake his fingers through his hair in agitation. _She_ was here, and she was taking _his_ side. 

Her red hair was brushing against the top of her shoulders, and her green eyes were staring at James accusingly.

“All right, Evans?” he asked, trying to sound normal.

“Leave him alone,” she said again. She was looking at him with disgust in her eyes. It was almost painful. “What’s he ever done to you?”

Not me, James silently argued, you. He called you a Mudblood. A _Mudblood!_ I can’t just let him say things like that. . . 

“Well,” James said slowly to give a more deliberate effect, “it’s more the fact that he _exists,_ if you know what I mean. . . .”

The people around them laughed.

Lily didn’t.

“You think you’re funny. But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him _alone._ ”

“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” James said quickly. What was he saying? He certainly hadn’t planned this. “Go on . . . Go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”

The Jinx was wearing off of Snape now, he had started to crawl towards his wand. He was spitting out bubbles on the way, leaving little pink mounds in the grass behind him.

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid.” She told James.

Suddenly it felt like the weight of a piano had fallen on James. 

“Bad luck Prongs,” Sirius said and turned back to Snape. “OY!”

There was a flash of light and a gash appeared on James’s cheek. Whirling, he leveled his wand at Snape, and another flash of light occurred and Snape was hanging upside down in the air. The unfortunate position exposed his skinny legs and gray underpants.

A couple people cheered, James laughed with Wormtail and Sirius, but he didn’t actually feel like laughing. 

Lily’s expression had twitched for a second, almost like she would have smiled. But then her face smoothed out and she said, “Let him down!”

“Certainly,” James said, and let Snape fall with a thud in a tangled heap on the ground. He knew he was being more harsh because Evan’s had refused him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“ _Locomotor mortis!”_ Sirius yelled and Snape stiffened and keeled over.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily yelled, and she had pulled her wand out. James looked at her apprehensively.

“Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,” James said. 

“Take the curse off of him then!” she said angrily.

James sighed, disappointed at this turn of events. Why she was so adamant about sticking up for him, he couldn’t tell. He pointed his wand at Snape and muttered the countercurse.

“There you go,” he said as Snape stood up with stiffness still in his muscles. “You’re lucky Evans was here Snivellus-”

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

Lily blinked and James could see the hurt flash across her face, and he filled with fury again. 

“Fine,” she said. “I won’t bother in the future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, _Snivellus_.”

James felt a fierce satisfaction that she had used his nickname for Snape. 

“Apologize to Evans!” James yelled at Snape, pointing his wand at his chest.

“I don’t want _you_ to make him apologize,” Lily shouted at James. “You’re as bad as he is. . . .”

“What?! I’d NEVER call you a- you-know-what!” James was completely flustered.

“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can- I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.”

She turned and, without a backward glance, she walked away.

“Evans!” James shouted after her, “Hey, EVANS!” 

She ignored him. 

“What is it with her?” James asked Sirius, as though it was a passing question, but really he was burning with curiosity. 

“Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” Sirius answered with a knowing smirk.

“Right,” James said furiously. “Right.” He waved his wand and Snape flew up into the air again. 

Well, if Lily thought that he wasn’t worth a damn already, then he was going to have fun with torturing Snivellus.

“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?”

“I don’t think there would be much to see,” Sirius remarked viciously. The crowd around them laughed again.

“As amusing as you undoubtably think this is, I believe the time has come for us all to adjourn to the Great Hall.” The soft voice from behind James sent a tremor of fear. Somehow it would seem so much easier if he just shouted. As far as he knew Dumbledore never shouted. 

James turned around to face the tall wizard. “I see your beard is coming along nicely, Sir.” It was about six inches below his chin.

“Thank you Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore inclined his head to accept the compliment. “Perhaps you could let Severus down.”

James turned around and waved his wand. With another flash of light Snape collapsed on the ground for the second time that afternoon. He picked up his wand and looked as if he had half a mind to hex James right there in front of the Headmaster.

“Go on up to the castle Severus, supper is just beginning,” Dumbledore informed him cheerfully. 

Snape turned and stuffed his books in his bag and stalked up to the castle. 

Dumbledore regarded Sirius and James with a calm gaze. He seemed to be thinking on something. “Detention I think. This Friday with Hagrid.”

James saw Sirius relax when he heard it was with Hagrid. 

“Mr. Black, why don’t you go on to supper, I would like to talk with James alone.” Sirius gave James half of a look and then scampered off to the castle. 

James turned back to Dumbledore. The older man was regarding him with serious blue eyes behind his glasses.

James’s hand jumped to his hair out of habit, and the corner of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched.

“The way to a girl’s heart is not by torturing her best friend.” Dumbledore eventually said.

James stared at him. He was expecting a lecture, maybe an admonishment. Not romantic advice. 

“He called her a Mudblood this morning.” James said stupidly.

“Did she know that?” Dumbledore asked that.

“No.” James looked down at the ground. 

“Perhaps, if you hadn’t made him admit that in front of everyone, she would have been able to convince him to abandon the Dark Arts. As it is now, she won’t talk to him again.”

Dumbledore walked away then, leaving James standing next to the lake with his wand held limp in his hand and nothing better to do but to grab his bag and go up to the castle.

He sat at the Gryffindor table where Sirius was chatting with Lupin and Wormtail. 

Mary Macdonald, a pretty fourth year with brown curly hair was sitting next to James. 

“James are you okay? You’re not eating,” she asked him kindly. But he didn’t want kind.

At the sound of her voice Sirius turned around quickly.

“I’m fine,” James said and he stood up from the table and hurried up to the Gryffindor common room.

He ran up to his dormitory and took his broom and his invisibility cloak out from his trunk. He threw the cloak over him and snuck back down the stairs.

No one was in the common room so he didn’t have to wait for someone to come in to get out of the portrait hole. He climbed out and started down the stairs. He passed Snape on the way down. He was looking at his feet as he walked and his gaze didn’t waver.

James eased around him and then went down to the Great Hall and out the large doors. 

Darkness was falling quickly, so he didn’t have to wait very long before he could fly. He made his way to the Quidditch pitch and stashed his cloak at the bottom of one of the goals. Then he kicked off of the ground. The air rushed passed his face and it felt like waking up.

A sort of euphoria curled in his stomach as he flew laps around the stadium and he made loops and turns.

Then he abandoned the stadium to fly over the lake, as low as he could get. He could feel the water in the air as he flew.

A ripple disturbed the surface and a tentacle of the Great Squid came up, almost unseating James. He flew upwards, yelling from the excitement. 

But when he landed there was still unease radiating from the pit of his stomach.  He went over the the edge of the Forbidden Forest and placed his invisibility Cloak and his broom at the base of a tree and then walked into the trees and shifted into the form of a stag.

Being an animagus had certain advantages. It was useful on nights like tonight when all he wanted to do was run. James bunched up the muscles in his back and then sprung forward, running deep into the forest. It took him hours to tire out. When he finally did, he had made almost a full circle and he traced his own scent back to where his cloak and broom were hidden. 

James threw the cloak over him and started to walk back to the castle. He eased in through the doors and started to make his way up the flights of stairs. There was one dreadful moment when a teacher walking by seemed to hear something, but then the man just shook his head, muttering something to himself and walked on.

James rounded the corner to go to the portrait of the Fat Lady and stopped, seeing Lily and Severus standing in the hallway.

Lily was wearing a nightgown and Snape was dressed in his usual black with his greasy hair.

“Save your breath.” Lily said. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.”

Snape was truly agitated, he was wringing his hands and shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just-”

“Slipped out?” Lily’s voice was colder than James had ever heard it. Even when she was insulting him there a certain amount of warmth to it. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends- you see, you don’t even deny it!- You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who can you?”

Severus opened his mouth, but no sound came out and he closed it again without speaking.

“I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way. I’ve chosen mine.”

James felt a fierce surge of pride for Lily.

“No,” Snape said, “Listen, I didn’t mean-”

“-to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

He looked at her helplessly, struggling for words, but she only gave him a withering look and climbed back through the portrait hole.

Snape stood there and stared at the Fat Lady for several minutes. Then he turned and walked away. 

James waited until he was he around the corner and then pulled off his cloak and gave the password. The picture swung forward and he scrambled through, stuffing his cloak in his pocket as he went.

The fire had gone down to embers now, and all the tables and plush chairs were abandoned except for one.

Lily sat in front of the fireplace, staring into the smoldering coals. The light from them cast strange shadows over her face. James caught himself staring before shaking himself and walking over to sit next to her.

He sat his broom down next to the chair he sank into. 

“Sorry,” he said. He waited, hardly breathing, hoping that his apology would be accepted with more grace than Snape’s.

“What for?” she asked with dead voice.

“Er-” James floundered for a moment. “For making your best friend call you an unspeakable name in front of half the school.”

“Not your fault he called me that,” she said.

“But it’s my fault he shouted that in front of everyone.”

“Yes.” She hadn’t moved. “Why do you hate him so much?” The deadness had gone out of her voice and she sounded at least a little curious.

“Slytherin, aspiring Death Eater, and I heard him call you a Mudblood in the Owlery this morning.” James said the last couple of words quickly.

Her head snapped to the side. “Is that why you attacked him today?”

James nodded.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Lily asked. “You don’t need to protect me! Why didn’t you just tell me that he’d said that?”

“How was that conversation supposed to go?” James yelped. “Hiya Lily, sorry to ruin your day, but I overheard your best friend calling you the worst possible name ever this morning, and I thought you ought to know.”

“That’s still nicer than torturing him in front of the entire school!” She shouted at him.

“I was angry!” James shouted back. 

“What right do you have to be angry for me?” Lily yelled at him. “What makes you think you have the responsibility of protecting me?” 

“I don’t know!” James sat back in the chair. “I don’t know what it is about you,” he said softly. “I just don’t know.”  
She glared at him, and then she turned on her heel and stalked away. 

James’s eyes followed the swing of her red hair as she walked away. 

*   *   *

James and Sirius were making their way down to Hagrid’s hut as the sun got dark.

That morning James had woken up to Sirius throwing a pillow at him. “Wake up, mate, we’ve got Transfiguration today. And then detention!” 

James had groaned and rolled over. When he finally got out of bed he had to endure Wormtail fretting about the exam, and Lupin’s declarations that he would fail this exam, surely, he simply hadn’t studied enough, and Sirius arguing Quidditch with Mary and all the while trying not to glance at Lily, who was sitting next to Mary and therefore right across from James. 

He had been mostly unsuccessful. 

Sirius knocked on the wood of Hagrid’s door and there were a couple of thundering footsteps and then the door opened. Light spilled out onto the lawn.

“C’mon in then,” Hagrid’s gruff voice boomed out into the darkness.

Sirius grinned up at him. “All right, Hagrid?”

Sirius entered in the door and James followed behind, staggering forward from the weight of of Hagrid’s slap on the back. 

He entered just in time to see Lily jump up from the table and almost spill her tea. “I’m so sorry Hagrid, I’ll go now.”

“Are yeh sure yer a’right?” he asked her with his eyes crinkling at the edges.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine,” she said quickly. James could see the redness around her eyes. “Perfectly fine. Thank you for the tea.” 

Lily was determinedly looking anywhere but at James. He stared at her while she exited quickly. She fled from the room and out onto the grounds. 

“Uh, excuse me, Hagrid, I’ll be back in a second,” James stammered. 

Sirius and Hagrid exchanged a look that James had no time to comment on. He ran out onto the grass. 

“Lily!” he yelled after her.

She didn’t stop walking.

He caught up to her and started to walk beside her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said sharply.

“You’ve been crying,” James said. He had no idea what he was doing here. He should be avoiding her, getting over her, not chasing after her and worrying about what she had been crying about.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that I yelled at you last night, and I’m sorry that Snape called you a Mudblood and I’m sorry that all I ever seem to do is apologize to you.”

Lily sneaked a peak at him out of the corner of her eye. He ran his hand through his hair in distress. It made his hair stand up even more. 

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked.

“Thank you for apologizing.” Lily spoke the words stiffly, and continued to march on.

James took her elbow and spun her around to face him. She tried to look at her feet, but then looked defiantly right at him.

James felt a swooping sensation in his stomach as she looked at him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said deliberately.

“Yes,” she said, “You said that.”

“You didn’t seem to understand that I was trying to be sincere.”

She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “Stop it, James,” she said irritably. She turned to walk away again.

“Stop what?” He asked and skipped forward to stand in front of her so that she couldn’t walk anymore.

“Please move.” She sighed and looked up at him once more.

“What is it that you want me to stop doing? I can’t stop irritating you if you don’t tell me what it is that is irritating you.”

“Stop being so damn accommodating!” Lily started to yell at him again. “Stop trying to make me happy, stop trying to apologize every time something goes slightly wrong. No one else bothers, why should you?”

She side-stepped him and started to walk towards the castle again.

He caught up with her again. “I’m confused,” he said. “Does this mean that I’m doing something right or something wrong? Because last time I checked, being accommodating was a good thing, but you yelled it like I was having the Dark Mark tattooed on my arm.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Her face was dark as she said it.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Sev got it a couple of months ago.” Lily’s breath hitched and James thought he could see her crying again. “I don’t understand why he hates me so much, why he hates Mubloods so much. Maybe we don’t really belong. Maybe he’s right.”

“Lily!” James stopped walking and spun her around so that his hands were on her shoulders. “Don’t EVER say that again! You are a witch, and you have as much right to be here as anyone else. More right than Severus Snape. You are not a Mudblood, and if I ever hear you call yourself that again. . . . “

He trailed off, and Lily looked up at him.

“I don’t _get_ it. Why do you care?”

“Because you’re worth more than that!” he yelled. “And you don’t even see it!”

Lily’s eyes filled with tears again.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Goodnight.” Then she turned and walked to the castle, and James didn’t follow her.


	2. Full Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything goes crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this is J.K. Rowling's world, and not my own.

The detention seemed to go on forever. They were patching up injured bowtruckles, which frankly meant that James and Sirius were more injured at the end of the the detention than the bowtruckles were at the beginning. The entire time James had to bite his lips to stop himself from asking Hagrid what Lily had told him.

They walked out of Hagrid’s hut with bandages around their fingers. “Thank goodness we’re not spending the night human,” Sirius said, indicating his injured hands.

James looked up to see the full moon in the sky. “Come on then, they’ll start without us,” he said to Sirius and set out at a jog to the Whomping Willow. Sirius started running after him, whooping dangerously loud. 

James skidded to a stop just before he got into range of the branches. He picked up a stick and pressed the knot at the base of the trunk. The branches stopped moving.

James lifted up the trapdoor and bowed to Sirius, “After you.”

Sirius grinned and crawled down, James followed suit. They started to creep down the passageway. 

“Tonight should be fun,” Sirius whispered.

“Just like usual, I suppose,” James grinned happily. He really loved these nights. Running around with his best friends as animals was releasing somehow. He wondered if they would still do it after they were married and had jobs. Maybe one day his children would ask him where he was going.

“No,” Sirius shook his head, “more fun than usual.”

“What do you mean?” James looked at Sirius warily. Maybe Sirius had done something stupid without informing James first. It wouldn’t be a first.

“Snivillus was asking about what we get up to,” Sirius’s grin in the dark was frightening. 

James froze and he grabbed Sirius’s arm to turn him around. “Padfoot, what did you tell him?”

Sirius just grinned maniacally at him.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” James yelled.

Sirius looked taken aback at the yelling. “I just said that he should try to follow Remus one night.”

James cursed. He cocked his head as he heard sounds of thrumming paws on the ground. His shouting must have attracted the attention of the werewolf.

“Get Remus,” he told Sirius shortly, and Sirius shifted into a great black dog. A creature came bounding down the corridor. A rat was slithering in and out of it’s paws. Pettigrew. 

Sirius launched himself at Lupin to keep him back as James ran back down the corridor. 

Sure enough, a small, greasy-haired boy was crawling down passageway. “Go back!” James yelled at him. 

Snape turned around to look at him. James ran into him and tugged on his robes. 

“Go!” He yelled. He started to drag Snape back up the corridor. 

“Bloody Hell,” Snape said as he apparently got a glimpse of the werewolf down the corridor. The color had all drained out of his face.

The darkness made everything look like a black and white movie, James thought ridiculously.

James risked a look backwards. Sirius wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping Moony back, but he was just one animal. Wormtail was no help at all of course, being a rat. James wished he could transform right now, together he and Padfoot could keep Remus off of Snape. But he couldn’t shift right in front of Snape, in case he told anyone. 

He probably already had worked it out already, but he had no actual evidence. Plus, he wasn’t moving, so James had to drag him. 

They finally reached the trapdoor. James pushed him up towards the door. “Out!” When Snape still didn’t respond James got in his face. “OUT!” he roared.

Snape jumped and he scrambled up out of the tunnel.

James followed.

“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?” He yelled at Snape.

“Black- he said. . . .” Snape seemed to be speechless, he was opening and closing his mouth wordlessly.

“So you do whatever he says?!” James raked his finger through his hair. He was sure that his hair was standing straight up.

“I wanted to know-”

“Okay, well now you know,” James said. “If you ever tell anyone I will make your life miserable.” He pointed to the castle. “Go.” 

Severus looked at him defiantly. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

James stepped closer, he was a full head taller than the Slytherin. “I just saved your life, which was something that I wasn’t exactly inclined to do after you called Lily a Mudblood, and I’ve almost decided that I would like to change my mind about saving your life. I am _suggesting_ _very strongly_ that you go back to the castle and not risk your life anymore tonight.”

Snape pushed James away and then turned on his heel and stomped back to the castle with his black robes flying out behind him. 

James rolled his eyes up to the sky and took a deep breath. Then he climbed back down into the tunnel and changed.

The tunnel was a little cramped for a stag, but he made it through, pushing Moony back to the Shrieking Shack successfully. 

James guarded the door all night, because he would be damned if any of them were going out on the grounds that night. 

Sirius tried to approach James once, but James just lowered his head to present his antlers to the dog. Sirius whined at him once, but mostly kept his distance after that. Wormtail just slithered around the edges of the room and Remus destroyed what little furniture was left. 

James’s fury was growing more and more by the hour. The moon seemed to go down slowly and the sun came back.

Remus made the change back, leaving him cowering in the corner of the room, shaking. He was always a little distraught after the change. Generally the other three would let him have a couple moments to gather himself together again. 

Wormtail changed back as well, growing into human. His hands were held in front of him like paws for a couple more seconds before he realized what form he was in and then lowered his hands to his sides.

“What happened?” He asked with his eyes darting around the room.

James turned into a human as well, feeling his bones shift. “Ask Sirius,” he said quietly.

Sirius was the last to change, his body elongating and the fur shrinking until he was fully human and all fours on the ground. He stood up.

“Prongs,” he said with his hands spread out in front of him. 

James took two steps towards him. His hands were clenched into fists already. He had never hit anyone before, but he supposed it was something that came rather naturally because he hit Sirius in the jaw with a satisfying _smack._

Wormtail let out a little yelp and his hands leaped to cover his mouth.

Remus jumped up, recovering much quicker than usual and stepped between the two of them. 

“You almost killed a man tonight,” James hissed at Sirius.

“I don’t know if I would have called him a ‘man.’” Sirius tried to joke. 

James glowered at him.

“I wouldn’t have let it get that far!” Sirius said defensively.

“It got far enough!” James yelled back and then spun away. “He told Severus to come follow you Remus. It seems Snivillus was asking some questions, and Padfoot here, thought it would be a _grand_ idea to tell him to follow you.”

“Sirius,” Remus said. “That was a foolish thing to do.” He spoke softly and there was pain in his voice. Everyone knew that he was thinking of what he could have done to Snape.

Sirius seemed to deflate at those words. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

James gave him one last withering look and swept out of the room, and hurried along the tunnel. 

James stalked up to his dormitory, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to him. As he walked through the common room Lily stared at him. He tried not to notice. It was a useless effort.

He went up to his empty dormitory and climbed into his four poster bed. He snapped the curtains shut and slept until noon.

*   *   *

When he woke up the dormitory was empty, even though he had heard voices at one point. He walked down to the common room to find it mostly empty. First and second years were clustered around tables and there were a smattering of fifth and seventh years, frantically studying for what ever tests they might have left.

James sighed, remembering that it was the last trip to Hogsmeade of the year. He had nothing else to do, he might as well go. He crawled through the portrait hole and made his way down the stairs.

Filch stood next to the double doors. 

“Name?” He growled.

James sighed, Filch knew who he was, he had given him detention at least ten times. 

“James Potter.”

Filch took an extraordinary amount of time to find his name on the list and place a little checkmark next to it. 

James brushed passed him with an impatient sigh and walked out into the sunshine. 

He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked along the pathway. A little ways into the walk he looked up and caught a familiar head of red hair. He started to walk a little faster.

He caught up and started to walk with her. She gave him a sideways glance and then stared straight ahead resolutely.

“Feeling better today?” James asked her while looking right at her.

Her gaze didn’t waver. “I’m fine, thank you.”

James clasped his hands together, twisting his fingers painfully in frustration. Some of the scabs from last night broke open. 

“You’re bleeding,” Lily said and James smiled at the slight concern in her voice. “What did you do?”

“Detention last night, we were working with bowtruckles,” James said.

Lily winced a little bit thinking about it.

“Why didn’t you go to Madame Sanamarita?” Lily asked.

“I didn’t have time to go the the Hospital Wing last night, and I forgot all about them this morning.” James turned his hands over, watching a droplet of blood trail over  his palm.

“Here, let me,” Lily said grabbing his hand and pulling out her wand. 

“Can you heal cuts?” He asked nervously.

“Yes,” she said distractedly and she frowned in concentration. It made a little crease appear in between her eyes. His skin was tingling a little bit where she was touching his hand. She muttered the spell and dragged her wand along his hands.

“Other one,” she said and he lifted his other hand to hers.

She healed the cuts on that hand too. 

“Thank you,” he said.

She looked off to the side of him. “You’re welcome.”

They started to walk again. 

“Look,” she said. “I meant what I yelled at you on Thursday.” She was wringing her hands in front of him.

“Which part?” James asked smiling, “the part where you told me that I was conceited or the part where you told me I had no business being offended for you or the part where you didn’t think you belonged at Hogwarts because you have muggle blood?” His face had grown dark at the last part.

“All of it except the last bit,” she said blushing a little bit. 

“Good,” he said.

She looked startled. “What?” 

“If you were still thinking that you didn’t belong here I would have had to give you a long lecture. I can’t heal cuts, and I’m a pure-blood.”

“Okay, that’s not the point,” Lily said.

“No, the point is that you think I’m a conceited jerk and you are quite adamant that you will never date me.”

“Yes! That is the point.” She looked down, blushing. “Sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. “You’re not that sorry, you still hate me.” He sounded complaining to himself. He shut his mouth before he said anything else.

“I don’t hate you, I highly dislike you. And I’m not sure if I can do that with a clear conscience anymore, not after last night. Thanks for, you know,” she floundered awkwardly, “basically telling me I was an idiot.”

James smiled. “Anytime you need it.”

The stepped onto the street that made up Hogsmeade. 

“I’ll, uh, see you later,” James said and started to make his way to Zonkos. He had some restocking to do if he was going go out with a bang for the end of his fifth year.

He stepped inside of the store and started to peruse the items that were displayed along the walls. The clerk behind the counter gave him a friendly nod, they knew each other quite well by now. 

James concluded his shopping with a purse lighter from absent galleons and  his pockets weighed down with mischievous items.

He stepped back out onto the street. He looked around and decided to see if there was anyone worthwhile in the Three Broomsticks. 

He walked in and found Lupin, Wormtail and Bartemis Crouch Jr. sitting at a table. James walked over and spun one of the chairs around and sat on it, resting his arms on the back of the chair. 

“What’s happening?” James asked and grinned a little bit at the three Gryffindors. 

“Talking about the probability of Gryffindor winning the House Cup next year,” Lupin said.

Bartemis nodded. “We’re losing half of our team this year, they’re leaving, so we’ll have a new team.”

“That’s true,” James said. He honestly hadn’t given it much thought what with everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks. 

“We’ll have you, one beater and one chaser left,” Wormtail piped up, his eyes darting around the room as they always did.

“And Quimbley isn’t that good,” James said thinking of their chaser. “We saw that when we played against Slytherin.” Suddenly James sat up straight and looked around the room. “Has anyone seen any Slytherin’s in Hogsmeade today?” 

Lupin frowned. “I don’t think I have.” 

“I haven’t,” Wormtail squeaked.

“I haven’t either,” Bartemis said.

James frowned. This couldn’t be good. Snape and Mulciber had said that they were planning something this weekend. 

There were loud cracks outside, and then there was a moment of silence. James felt like that second lasted an eternity. He saw Lupin’s brow crease in confusion, Wormtail started to bite his nails and Bartemis frowned.

Then suddenly the spell of silence ended and one scream pierced the air. It was cut off after a second. 

Another second of silence fell. James stood up, and his chair fell against the table, the bang making everyone spring to action. Lupin and Bartemis stood up, as did half of the customers around the room.

James ran for the door, pulling his wand out on the way. A Ravenclaw fourth-year made it there first and wrenched it open. There was a flash of light and he fell backwards. 

James leaped over him and out into the street. Lupin stopped to make sure the boy was alright. 

_Death Eaters_. James thought. He saw students out in the street. They were being pressed in from all sides by people in black robes with silver masks covering their faces. 

James briefly saw Lily’s face in the middle of the bunch of students. Barely half a second had passed since he had taken in all this information. 

One of the Death Eaters raised his wand, pointing it at a third-year girl. Helena Yeats, Hufflepuff, dated Quimbley for a time. The information ran through his head automatically like he was cataloguing her.

“ _Stupefy_!” James yelled, pointing at the Death Eater who was threatening the girl.

The spell hit him in the side underneath his raised arm. He fell over. 

James reached into his pocket and grabbed the multitude of Dungbombs that were hidden inside. He lobbed them into the Death Eaters crowd. Many of them started coughing and their eyes watered. The students were mostly impervious to the smell after being a victim of James’s attacks too many times and they started attack the maimed Death Eaters. 

Mass confusion started to spread amoung the crowd. People were falling left and right.

A couple of Death Eaters turned towards James after his attack. More people were pouring out of the Three Broomsticks, and down the street more people were coming from all of the other shops as well. 

A Death Eater shot a killing curse at James. Panic seized his heart. Maybe he would die. What was the shield charm? He couldn’t dodge, it might hit someone behind him. But his body was already moving, and he looked back to see if someone was there who would be hit. 

“ _Protego_!” A familiar voice roared. The spell rebounded, hitting no one. A hand hooked under James’s arm and pulled him back onto his feet. Sirius flashed a grin at him and then started for the Death Eater who had tried to kill James. 

“ _Petrificus Totalus,_ ” Sirius calmly said, pointing his wand at the man in question. He stiffened into a board and fell over backward, landing on one of his companions. Sirius laughed in glee. 

“Shall we?” Sirius asked James and then, without waiting for an answer, ran into the knot of Death Eaters who were still surrounding the students, sending off spells in every direction.

James followed, trying, at the very least, to make sure that his best friend didn’t get killed.

A man in a mask stepped out in front of him, making James skid to a stop and raise his wand warily.

“Potter,” the man said with a silky accent. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“ _Stupefy_!” James yelled.

The man waved the spell away with a sigh. “I did expect better of you, but I suppose, you are a traitor . . .” His voice trailed away. Then he pointed his wand at James and a red light shot out of it. James dodged. He resolved to practice shield charms vigorously if he ever got out of this. 

“ _Expelliarmus,_ ” James exclaimed and the Death Eater’s wand flew out of his hand. He started to run to where it landed- twelve feet behind him- when James said, “ _Levicorpus.”_ And the Death Eater was wrenched into the air. 

Sirius ran past, “Nice one, James!” He yelled. 

James grinned, it did feel good to get the upper hand. He stepped forward and ripped the mask off of the man.

The bright blond hair fell out of the hood and the pointed nose was impeccably straight. James let Lucuis Malfoy down and then pointed his wand at him once more. “ _Petrificus Totalus.”_

Malfoy stiffened on the ground, his body turning slightly blue. 

James turned to see a spell flying towards him, he ducked and yelled, “ _Densaugeo,_ ” The Death Eater’s mask became dislodged as her teeth began to grow at an alarming rate. 

“Afada Kedafya,” The woman tried to get out, but the botched spell backfired and she flew backwards into the wall of Zonkos. 

James turned and ran into the fray that had begun to form. He fired spells into the backs of Death Eaters who were dueling his classmates. James noted with satisfaction that they were outnumbering Voldemort’s followers. 

Students were ganging up on Death Eaters. Three third years were dueling with man on James’s right. On his left, Mary and Sirius were dueling two Death Eaters. Sirius stunned one of them and immediately started helping Mary. When her opponent fell a look of stunned relief came over his face. 

James smiled, and immediately stopped when he saw Lily being dragged away from the fray by another masked Death Eater. He was holding her wand in his hand. She had a stupid smile on her face. 

James ran towards them. “ _Expelliarmus!_ ” He roared, pointing at the Death Eater with the grip on Lily’s arm.

His spell missed by a hair, and the man turned towards him, pointing both wands at him. 

“ _Crucio,_ ” he said, relishing the curse in his mouth.

The double spell hit James in the chest and he dropped to his knees in the middle of the street. He was gasping because the pain was _everywhere_. 

But he had to help Lily. . . 

He looked up, raising his wand. The Death Eater had already turned away, “ _Petrificus Totalus,”_ James whispered through the pain, trying to keep his wand steady. The spell hit him in the shoulder, and he fell forward onto his face. 

The pain vanished from James’s body instantly, and he stood up, sighing in release. He ran towards Lily.

She was swaying on the spot, giggling. 

“He landed on his face,” she whispered to James. She pointed to the Death Eater and giggled again. 

James gave her a strange look and tugged her wand out of the Death Eater’s hand. He held it out to her and she took it, holding it limply and looking at it with wide eyes.

“Are you confounded?” James asked suspiciously.

She laughed loudly at that. “You,” she poked him in the chest, “are funny! I never noticed that before.”

“Okay,” James said patiently. He put his hand at the small of her back and started to walk towards the fight again. There were still too many Death Eaters left. James couldn’t leave Lily on her own though, and he wanted to join the fight again.

There was a loud crack, and Dumbledore appeared in the middle of the fight. Professor Kettleburn had appeared too, along with Flitwick and McGonagall. 

Three Death Eaters ganged up on Dumbledore and two on each of the other teachers. 

James watched in fascination as Dumbledore repelled all of their spells.

They threw spells James had never even heard of at him. Dumbledore calmly repelled each and every one of them.

McGonagall was cruelly efficient, transfiguring one of her opponents into a venus fly trap and the other into a fly. The trap snapped shut over the insect. 

There was a certain amount of flair to each of the professors ways of handling their opponents. Kettleburn placed some poisonous leeches onto his opponents skin, and Flitwick cast tickling charms on his, so that they were too busy laughing to cast any spells.

Dumbledore put his first two opponents into a deep sleep. (“Sleep little baby, don’t say a word,” Lily crooned.)

The third cast a look around at all his fallen comrades and a fearful glance at Dumbledore and disapparated. 

Professor Slughorn came running down the path, “I just heard,” he panted, “Came. . as fast . . . as I could.”

“Yes, well we’ve finished up quite nicely, Horace,” McGonagall said crisply. “Although if you could stick around to help Madame Sanamarita? I’m sure she’ll need some potions for the injured.”

“Of course, of course,” Slughorn said. 

Lily turned towards James. She looked up at him with bleary eyes. She was rocking against his chest. He tightened his arm around her waist to steady her slightly. 

“Lord, you’re pretty,” she said looking up at him. 

He was sure he had a bemused expression on his face. “Am I?” he asked.

“Mmm Hmmm,” Lily said swaying slightly. She peeked over his shoulder. “Oh, look at that!” she exclaimed delightedly.

James turned to see the last Death Eater that Dumbledore had been fighting. Apparently he had apparated a very short distance. He was raising his wand and pointing towards Lily.

James couldn’t hear the words that he whispered. A green light came shooting towards them. 

James raised his wand. “ _PROTEGO!”_ he bellowed.

His shield charm was so strong that the Death Eater who cast the spell was lifted off of his feet and flew all the way down the street before landing in a heap at the end, at least sixty feet away.

James turned back towards the crowd that was now staring at him.

Their shocked faces made him very aware that Lily was standing quite close to him and that he still had his arm around her waist.

“Damn,” Sirius said expressively, shaking his head. 

Everyone laughed a little bit, and then they turned away from James. 

“He flew,” Lily said wistfully, “I want to fly.” She was gripping a section of his shirt while she stared over his shoulder at the heap at the end of the street. 

“Haven’t you flown before?” he asked her.

She shook on her head. “I’ve never been on a broom.” She sighed daintily. She looked back at him again and giggled. “You have a cut on your face.”

She reached up and touched the blood on his cheek. 

James reached up and felt a long gash along his cheekbone. He hadn’t even felt it. He couldn’t remember where he had got it or who had given it to him. 

Lily was regarding her blood covered fingers curiously. She brought them up to her mouth like she was going to taste it. 

James grabbed her hand. “Okay,” he said, “that’s enough. Time to get you fixed.”

He wiped her hand on his shirt and pulled her over to the line of students who had to be checked for medical injuries. 

Madame Sanamarita had arrived and had set up shop in the Three Broomsticks. The students who were going to have to have prolonged medical attention were being sent back to the castle to take up residence in the Hospital Wing. A couple of students were in charge of levitating them there once Madame Sanamarita got them mostly fixed up. 

Thankfully she had gotten an assistant in the past few weeks, Madame Pomfrey was going to take over next year when Sanamarita retired. Madame Pomfrey was waiting back at the castle to take care of those people. 

Lily didn’t give James much trouble, although there was one troubling moment when she made some sort of foul smelling liquid shoot out of the end of her wand. James relieved her of her wand at that point, figuring it was for the greater good of everyone standing around them. 

The third year girl in front of James kept giving him wary glances, like he was going to jinx her from behind.

Lily sighed in his ear. “I’m sleepy,” she said. 

She fell against him, making him stumble and he staggered before getting his footing back and holding her up against him. 

James pulled Lily over the threshold of the Three Broomsticks and presented her to Madame Sanamarita.

“She’s been confounded,” he explained to her. “Or, at least, I think that’s what it was.”

“Okay,” Madame Sanamarita said, looking over Lily. “Well, you can take her over to Flitwick in a moment, and he’ll sort her. But I have to mend your cut first.” 

James stood still while she raised her wand and dragged it over his skin. He closed his eyes and focused on Lily to ignore the unnerving feeling of his skin knitting together.

“Alright dear, you’re fine, go on to Flitwick’s now.” 

James dragged Lily over to where Flitwick had set up his station and explained the situation to him.

Flitwick beamed up at Lily, who was still trying to sleep on James’s shoulder. “Yes, I’d say she was confounded.” Flitwick said. He sat her down and started muttering incantations over her.

James stared aimlessly around the room. Sirius was being treated by Madame Sanamarita now, and he was laughing at something. She was smiling indulgently at him. 

“There, she should be better,” Flitwick said. 

Lily was looking upwards with a confused expression on her face. She looked at Flitwick and seemed to struggle to focus her vision, blinking several times. 

“What happened?” she asked.

“You were confounded,” Flitwick said kindly.

She frowned and looked over at James. “You were there,” she said. 

James nodded at her. 

Her hand flew to her face. A deep blush was working it’s way across her skin. “Please tell me I did not say what I think I said.”

“To what are you referring to?” James asked innocently.

“I did didn’t I?” Lily asked, mortified.

“If you are speaking of the moment when you told me I was ‘pretty’ then yes,  you did say that.”

“I’m going to kill that Death Eater who did this to me.”

“Well, he’s as stiff as a board outside after I cursed him. If you can get into Azkaban or past Dumbledore then you’re quite welcome to do so.”

“I would recommend against it,” Flitwick said with a small smile. “Dumbledore doesn’t take kindly to attempted murder.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lily muttered. “Thank you, Professor Flitwick.”

She stood up and then swayed as she put a hand to her head. “Oh I’ve got a headache.”

James caught on to her. “Come on, I’ll help you up to the castle.”

“I can manage just fine,” she said pushing him off of her.

He raised and eyebrow as she took one step and wobbled dangerously. He stepped closer and smiled sweetly at her. 

“Fine,” she sighed, and allowed him to slip one arm around her waist.


	3. Family

James helped Lily out onto the street. They got all of two steps before James looked over to the right. 

He could see an arm flung haphazardly across the cobblestones. The face was blocked by Dumbledore, who was kneeling over the body. He seemed to be muttering incantations. 

“Oh, Merlin, no,” James breathed, and he dragged Lily over. Each step seemed heavy. 

As he approached the form he could see Sirius kneeling over the form as well, and Wormtail was hovering in the back ground anxiously, biting his nails. 

“Oh dear,” Lily said. 

James let go of Lily, leaving her swaying in the street as James kneeled down next to Remus’s inert form. 

Long ugly gashes were tearing his skin apart. Blood was pooling underneath Remus’s body. James rocked backwards and ran his hands through his hair, gripping it at the roots and pulling. The pain felt good, it almost cleared his head a little bit. 

“He’ll be alright James,” Dumbledore murmured the words in a comforting way. “He was hit with Dark magic, but I can cure that.”

As Dumbledore’s wand dragged along Lupin’s body the cuts healed, knitting together again. James looked away, he always hated watching that.

“It will be the loss of blood that is most detrimental, but Professor Slughorn can make up a potion that will help with that as well. Remus will be perfectly fine.”

The calm in Dumbledore’s voice surrounded James until he could think clearly again and he took a deep breath and lowered his hands.

“Mary, can you help me up to the castle?” Lily’s voice came from behind him.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Mary said.

Lily’s hand dropped onto James’s shoulder. “Mary’s going to help me,” she said to him. “I hope Remus is okay.”

James nodded, “Thanks,” he said and then watched as she threw an arm around Mary’s shoulders and they started to walk down the street.

James frowned as he watched them leave, he had been looking forward to that walk with Lily. Sirius frowned after them too. 

When James turned back to Remus Dumbledore’s beard twitched, like he was laughing at them. 

Remus stirred slightly on the ground, groaning. 

“Remus! Remus can you hear me?” Sirius leaned over his head.

Lupin cracked one eye open and groaned. “Merlin’s pants, Padfoot, you look awful.”

Sirius rocked backwards on his heels. He looked to the sky and let out a huge breath before he started to laugh. James watched him as he laughed so hard it turned into high-pitched wheezing. 

Behind him Wormtail cracked a little bit of a smile. 

Sirius wound down afterwards. 

“I think you’ll be just fine, Remus,” Dumbledore said kindly. “If you’ll take him to the infirmary?” He looked at James and Sirius, who nodded. The older wizard stood up surprisingly graceful, and started to move down the street, looking for anyone else that was injured. 

James stood up, muttering, “Just a moment,” to Sirius and followed Dumbledore.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “I think the Slytherins were involved in this.”

“Why do you think that James?” Dumbledore asked, tucking his wand into his sleeve.

“I overheard Snape in the Owlery the other day with Mulciber and they were talking about this, about how they had something important to do this weekend, and when we were . . . messing with Snape on the lawn the other day he said, ‘Just you wait.’”

“The Slytherins might not have had anything to do with this,” Dumbledore said gently.

James nodded, he knew that he was going to be critical. But so many pieces had already come together in his mind, and he was sure that he was right.

“Sure, but someone had to tell them when to come,” James said.

“I’m sorry?” Dumbledore looked faintly puzzled and he turned to face James directly.

“Okay, I know this crazy, but a Death Eater was dragging Lily Evans away from the fight, and he had confounded her so that she wouldn’t struggle and all the Death Eaters had just shown up with Lily and I got here, and I don’t know why they would want her. But there’s something telling me that they did, and that’s the reason they came.” James faltered a little bit, looking up at Dumbledore who was staring into the distance. “I know I sound mad,” he finished.

“You stopped them from taking Lily correct?”

“Yes.”

Dumbledore nodded absently and murmured something that vaguely sounded like, “Had to happen eventually.” Then he put a hand on James’s shoulder. “Hard times are coming, James, and while you did save Lily, you will not be able to save everyone.” 

Dumbledore looked closely at him, and James felt as if Dumbledore was looking into his future, and he didn’t at all like what he saw.

Dumbledore let go off him and walked off down the street, and James staggered back as if he had just been hit in the chest. Then he walked back slowly and helped Sirius support Remus. 

None of them said anything as they walked to the castle with Wormtail fluttering behind. The tension from the night in the Shrieking Shack had not yet dissipated, and James was too embarrassed to break the silence first and thank Sirius for saving his life.

They limped up to the castle as some awkward six legged caterpillar, and had just gotten into the entrance hall when someone yelled, “James!”

James paused, and gently extracted himself from underneath Remus’s arm when Eliza Potter engulfed him in a hug. James spit out some of her bushy hair and then hugged her back, nodding to his father, Clay Potter, who was a couple steps behind. 

“Oh, are you alright? We came as soon as we heard, are you hurt? There’s blood all over your face,” Eliza couldn’t stop talking as Clay took out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his son’s face. 

“Oh Remus, are you alright?” Eliza moved to the boy who was leaning heavily on Sirius.

“I’ll be fine, Mrs. Potter, I just need to get to Professor Slughorn, I need a potion to restore some of my blood.” Remus smiled tiredly at them.

“Sirius,” Eliza went and gave him a brief hug, “Are you alright?”

Sirius nodded at her, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “I’m fine, I wasn’t hurt badly.”

“And Peter?” Eliza asked the boy who was lurking in the background.

“Good, good,” he said, waving his hand.

Concern melted off of her face quickly. She smiled a little bit. “I was so worried,” she said squeezing her son’s arm. 

Clay looked at James, “Where is Professor Slughorn? I could help him with his potions,” Clay worked at St. Mungos as a potion brewer.

“I think he’s set up shop in the Hospital Wing,” James answered.

“I should go help too,” Eliza fretted, she worked as a midwife in St. Mungos. It was possible for witches to have children in normal hospitals, but the amount of accidents to the nurses became too dramatic, and a maternity wing was installed in St. Mungos instead. 

“We’ll catch up,” James said as he took his place next to Remus again.

His parents nodded at him and started to climb the stairs quickly, holding hands. 

Sirius gazed up after them with a wistful expression on his face. 

They made their way up to the hospital expression slowly, Sirius got his leg stuck in a trick step and one of the staircases was temperamental and moved while they were on it so they had to take a different route.

James staggered into the doorway of the infirmary to see his father with Professor Slughorn. Both were leaning over a potion, and had elbow length gloves on. They looked maniacal, ready to take on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself.

Eliza was talking to Rienetta, who had been hit with the cruciatus curse and needed therapy.

And then there was a third year, a little girl who was laying at the end of the ward. Her arm was bleeding profusely, and Madame Pomfrey was standing over her with a sad expression. As they shuffled closer they saw a bite mark in her arm. 

“What happened?” Sirius asked quietly.

Astrid, James remembered suddenly, her name was Astrid. She was in Hufflepuff. 

“Fenrir Greyback,” Madame Pomfrey sighed. 

James could feel Remus pull in a shuttering breath, and he turned to look at him. 

He was staring at the bite mark in her arm. “Shit,” he said. And then he started crying. 

Madame Pomfrey drew the curtains around the bed, and James and Sirius helped Remus into a chair.

He sat down heavily and then put his face into his hands and continued to cry. “That could have been me,” he whispered.

James exchanged a glance with Sirius and Wormtail. 

Suddenly Padfoot got a serious expression on his face and stiffened his back. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. 

Lupin looked up. “Don’t,” he said darkly, “tell me I’m being ridiculous.”

“Well you are!” Wormtail piped up from the back.

Everyone looked towards him in surprise. Direct confrontation with anyone was out of character for someone like Wormtail. 

“You would never do that,” he defended himself when everyone was looking at him. 

“He’s right,” Sirius said turning back to Lupin. 

“How do you know what I would and wouldn’t do?” Lupin asked. “What if one day I decide to go Dark?”

“Merlin’s beard, you’re thick!” James exclaimed suddenly.

Everyone turned to look at him this time. He knelt down in front of Remus and looked at him. His eyes were still red.

“You are not going Dark.” James said. “You are not going Dark now, and you will never go Dark. Because you have us.” He indicated the four of them with his finger. “We will always keep each other in line and we will always protect each other. You are not going Dark because you _care_ too much, Moony. You are not the tragic hero that is plagued by worries that he isn’t good enough. You are a man who knows who he is and who he loves. You just have a furry little problem, and that will never get in the way of the rest of your life.” 

James stared at him until he nodded. 

Clay walked over and handed a purple potion that was smoking slightly to Lupin. “This will restore your blood,” he said, “drink all of it and then sleep.”

Remus nodded and took a sip. “Ugh,” he made a face. “It tastes like toenails.”

“And you know this from personal experience?” Sirius asked with a mocking expression.

“Only because you persuaded me that they tasted good,” Remus responded with a beatific smile.

James laughed at them, thinking about what Dumbledore said, and when he was going to lose someone. _Please don’t let it be them._ He cast the thought somewhere above, just in case there was a God. 

He had meant what he had said to Remus, they would keep each other strong, but what he hadn’t said was that there would come a time when they would fail each other. They would keep each other safe, until they couldn’t. And with everything sliding down so fast, an attack in Hogsmeade, so close to Dumbledore, it seemed like that day when they lost their strength for each other would come sooner rather than later. 

But if one of them died. . . . There was nothing to bring back the dead. 

Remus finished his potion with a grimace. “Let’s go back to the tower,” he said. He stood on his own and then swayed a little bit. James ducked under his shoulder again, pulling his arm across his body and carrying a little bit of his weight. Sirius didn’t need to help this time, Remus was strong enough that James could handle it on his own. 

They all walked back to the tower together, and even though there was endless potential discussion, they all stayed silent. 

*   *   *

Considering the fact that they had all gotten four hours of sleep the night before, some even less, and that they had just been in the first fight of their lives, it was no surprise that they fell into bed and slept until the next morning.

James woke up to birds chirping and the sun just rising. He rolled out of bed and got dressed. It took him a moment to realize that he was staring at his clothes rather than just putting them on, until he came to his senses. 

It was mostly his stomach that was motivating him, it seemed hollow. He hadn’t eaten at all the previous day.

Sirius started to stir in his four poster bed, and James was suddenly struck by the fact that he doesn’t want to see him. He still hasn’t fully forgiven him for trying to kill Snape that night. Although, it would have been just, if he had helped plan the Hogsmeade escapade. 

James hurried down to the common room, which was empty and then made his way to the Great Hall. Food was already laid out on the tables.

His parents, always the early risers, were already there, they must have stayed the night. Random students are scattered around the great hall, some avoiding social interaction studiously, and others are sitting next to each other without saying a word. It was quiet from the lack of conversation.

James walked over and sat across from them, piling the food onto his plate. They continued to talk softly to each other. 

“It’s getting bad now though, worse than we ever thought it would.” Eliza said.

“The Ministry promised to have dealt with him by now,” Clay reached over to pick up his pumpkin juice.

“They’ve put their best Aurors on it,” Eliza defended them. “But who is going to be able to take down You-Know-Who?”

“I reckon Dumbledore’s the only chance we got,” James said through a mouthful of toast. 

“Well, he’s running a school, he doesn’t exactly have time to go hunting the Dark Lord down does he?” Clay asked his son.

“He’s been gone a lot this year, there’s been a lot of mysterious absences,” James said. 

“Well, that would have been him setting up the Order,” Eliza said.

“Whaz ee or’er?” James asked, he had just shoveled sausage into his mouth, which accounted for the fact that he couldn’t speak properly.

“Honestly, James, I thought I raised you with better manners,” his mother turned her nose up at him.

He swallowed noisily and repeated, “What’s the Order?”

“It’s a group of people, all sorts of people really, who are hell-bent on getting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to the after-life,” Sirius said, sliding into to the seat next to James. “Don’t you read the Daily Prophet? There were articles about it, inviting everyone to join.”

Clay pointed his fork at Sirius. “Exactly.”

“Can I join?” James asked excitedly.

“No, you’re not seventeen,” Clay answered.

“So you’ve joined then right?” James asked his parents.

They looked down at their plates. “No, we haven’t,” Eliza said in a quiet voice.

“Why not?” James asked with a disbelieving note in his voice.

“We have more important things to attend to,” Clay said in his Healer’s voice, soothing and designed to make the tension leave the conversation.

“What is more important than getting rid of Voldemort?”

Eliza looked up, her temper flaring. “You!” she snapped. “We have to make sure that you have parents to come home to in the summer and making sure that you’re not stranded at the age of sixteen with no parents, no money, and no place to live.”

“To hell with that,” James said, standing up. “What’s the use of trying to be there for your kid if when they grow up the world is dominated by a tyrant who kills muggle borns because who their parents were? What’s the point in this, in all of this,” he waved his hand to include the castle, “if we can’t use magic to make the world better?”

He stormed off in between the tables, everyone who was in the room looking at him because he had spoken louder than a whisper. 

Footsteps followed behind him, and he thought that it would be his mother, but the hand that spun him around belonged to Sirius.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sirius asked him in a low voice.

“What do you mean?” Righteous indignation was still working it’s way through him. 

“I mean yelling at your parents like that! Don’t you get it?” Sirius was almost shouting at him.

“They don’t want to defeat You-Know-Who!”

“Bullshit,” Sirius said. He seemed calm, but James knew better. He always got like this in stressful situations. He was calm until he blew up. 

“Well then what?” James asked, flinging his arms wide, inviting an answer to come to him. “Because I don’t really see another explanation.”

Sirius was shaking his head at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“How am _I_ the idiot here?”

“BECAUSE YOU DON’T SEE WHAT YOU HAVE!” Sirius’s face was red and he was advancing on James, who didn’t move. “You have a family that _loves_ you.” he hissed at him. “Do you have any idea? Do you have any idea what I would give for that? My parents almost disowned me because I was placed in Gryffindor! They look down on every one of my choices, and they ridicule me for it. They don’t say one encouraging thing to me, not one. They have never told me that they loved me, never praised me for getting good marks, never bragged about me. It’s Regulus this, Regulus that, WELL I DON’T CARE. I just want something that shows they have the least bit of affection for me.”

Sirius was breathing heavily. 

James stared at him. 

“You are the only one out of all of us who has any sort of decent home life. Remus’s parents are so ashamed of his _problem_ that they can’t even look at him. Imagine that, not even getting a sneer of disdain from your own parents. And Peter never even talks about home, haven’t you noticed that? He hasn’t said one word. Haven’t you noticed that about your best friends James? Or have you been too busy getting angry at your parents who love you so much they’re missing out on a fight that they clearly want in on?”

Sirius brushed passed him and started up the stairs. 

James felt something like guilt weigh down his stomach. He started up the stairs too, doing what he always did when he and Sirius were in a fight, he went to talk to Remus.

He went up to the dormitory, but it was empty except for Wormtail.

“Where’s Remus?”

Wormtial shrugged a little bit, “I think he said he was going to the Hospital Wing.”

So James turned around and went down the stairs and through the common room, which was filling up by now, and through the portrait hole. He walked through the corridors until he saw his parents rounding the corner.

James dove behind a tapestry and held very still as they passed.

Honestly, they should get a map that could showed where everyone was so they could avoid people. 

He slipped out from behind the tapestry when they had passed by. He made it to the Hospital Wing without running into anyone else. 

He paused in the doorway, wondering if Remus had come here because he still wasn’t feeling well. 

But no, he was sitting next to Astrid, talking softly to her. She was smiling back at him, and he said something in a jocular tone and she laughed. 

It was just so _Remus_ , James thought, to care about someone who he had never had a proper conversation with. Odds were that, since Fenrir wasn’t a werewolf at the time, that Astrid wouldn’t be a full werewolf anyway, and Remus still thought it was his place to coach her through it. 

Maybe he felt this way because he never had had any support himself, at least until James, Sirius and Wormtial came along. 

James turned away and started to walk away. He didn’t want to interrupt.

He ran into his parents on the way back to the dormitory.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Clay said.

“Sorry,” James muttered, looking down at his feet.

“Listen, honey, it’s not that we don’t want to get rid of You-Know-Who,” Eliza began, putting an arm around his shoulder.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said what I did.” James paused and then looked up at both of his parents. “Look, here’s the thing, I’ll be of age in half a year, so you don’t really have to worry about me being to young to take care of myself.”

“I know,” Clay said, “but we would prefer if you didn’t have to.”

They all paused and looked at one another. 

“Listen, do you have anymore O.W.L.s?” Eliza asked.

“No, only Muggle Studies and Divination is left, and I didn’t take either of those this year.”

“We thought we might leave early and Apparate home this afternoon,” his mother said.

James had to admit that leaving Hogwarts actually sounded a little relieving. So he nodded. “I’ll go start to pack.”

“We’ll leave whenever you’re ready,” his father said. 

James nodded.

He went back to his dormitory which was blessedly empty, and started to pack everything up. It took him longer than usual, because he kept staring out the window at the people on the lawn. 

It was like they had no idea that their world was coming to an end. Voldemort would come and take all of this, and there was nothing to do about it.

_You can’t save everyone._

James sat down on the bed and cradled his head in his hands. It was a bad day. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, so he stood up and started packing again.

Remus came into the room.

“What are you doing?” Moony asked him.

“My parents want to leave tonight,” James told him.

Moony paused, like he was wavering between two things to say. But in the end he only said, “Oh,” and went to go sit on his bed.

They sat like that in silence, and James was thinking about how his family couldn’t even stand to look at Remus when he opened his mouth and started to say, “Look Remus-”

At the same time Remus said, “I just-”

They paused, both looking at the other.

“You go first,” James said.

Remus looked down. “Thank you, for what you said earlier. I needed someone to tell me that I was being an idiot. It’s just hard, to be what I am and be confident that my _condition_ , won’t overrule who I am.”

“Moony, you’re a werewolf,” James said sitting on his bed facing him. “You don’t have to skirt around the word when you’re in private with us, it’s not a bad thing, it’s who you are. It’s like having red hair or freckles. And those things do not affect our choices. Becoming a Death Eater is not inevitable for Slytherins, it isn’t some destiny that people can’t escape. It’s a choice. And you have that choice.”

Remus looked up at him and smiled thinly. “I know,” he said quietly. 

James stood up started to pack again. “Are you going to be okay this summer?” he asked casually. “With your family and everything?”

Remus looked up, “Yeah, yeah I should be fine. I might go crazy from boredom, but I’ll be fine.”

“Well, come round if you ever need a break,” James offered.

Remus gave him a funny look. “Thanks.”

Footsteps came up the stairs and the sound of breathless laughter. Sirius and Wormtail entered the room. 

“What’s going on? Why is your trunk packed?” Sirius asked. 

“My parents and I are leaving tonight, early. I don’t have any exams left, so we’re going home,” James said all of this without actually looking at Sirius. 

Sirius stared determinedly at the corner of James’s four poster bed as he answered.

“Well, have a good summer then.”

“You too,” James responded. 

He nodded at Wormtail who nodded back, and then he waved a hand at Remus. 

James pulled his wand out of his robes and whispered, “ _Locomotor trunk!”_ His trunk rose into the air and he started down the dormitory stairs, his trunk trailing behind him, knocking against the walls.

He was unsatisfied at how he was leaving things with Sirius. But he was too proud to go and apologize. 

So instead he made his way down to the Great Hall. His parents were waiting there, and they exited the castle, talking about nothing, because for some reason when there was the most to talk about people never said anything.

They were all too absorbed in their thoughts. James was worrying that he may have ruined the friendship he’s had with his best friend, and that maybe Lily was the target of the Death Eaters, and maybe they would come after her again this summer. 

They came to the end of the walkway and James released his hold on his spell, as he was technically no longer in Hogwarts, and he could be expelled for doing magic over the summer holidays. 

His father dragged his trunk just outside the grounds and held onto it tight, and then concentrated and turned on the spot, disappearing in a loud crack. 

“Take my arm dear,” Eliza said to James, offering her elbow.

James swallowed and then slid his arm through hers, gripping tight.

He had only experienced Side-along Apparation once before, when they had been extraordinary late for someone’s wedding. The couple had been killed six months ago by Death Eaters. 

He didn’t like Side-along Apparation then, and he didn’t like it now. It was like the world came together, pressing on him at all sides, until everywhere was around him, and he was being pulled to step out a  specific location, only he couldn’t see what that location was. 

He stepped with his mother, and they came out onto a green lawn at high noon.  A house rose in front of them, with a pointy roof and it was painted a cream color with red trim and a red door. 

Clay was already inside, the trunk levitating upstairs to James’s bedroom when James and Eliza made it inside. James took a deep breath in.

He could smell a vague scent of cinnamon and bread. 

“Are you hungry dear?” Eliza asked.

“No,” James said. “I think I’m going to take a nap.”

He bounded up the stairs to his bedroom, trying to escape company, because the thoughts in his head were crashing against his skull in waves, and he was getting fierce headache. 

He fell onto his bed an closed his eye, but sleep wouldn’t come.

There were so many worries in his head that he didn’t even have time to fully address them all, and they just chased each other around in his head.

_Sirius._

_Lily._

_Remus._

_Wormtail._

_Death Eaters._

_Voldemort._

_Who will I lose?_

_Who will I lose?_

_Who will I lose?_

  



	4. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius's point of view

When Sirius Black got off of the Hogwarts Express he was not expecting his parents to be particularly kind to him. The formal ‘Hello,’ that his father, Orion Black, gave him stiffened his spine in shock. 

His mother, Walburga, ignored him completely, preferring to smile at her younger son, Regulus and ask him about his year.

“It was fine,” Regulus said, squirming a little bit in the hug that his mother bestowed upon him. 

Orion was a man that was about as thick as a twig, and about as intelligent as one too. He followed his wife in every aspect of life. Occasionally, when he was upset, he wrung his bony hands together, and his big eyes would widen even more, but he was rarely ever upset, and when he was, it was because there was no cockroach clusters in the house. As a general rule, everyone in the Wizarding World avoided cockroach clusters as much as they possibly could, and it had long been Sirius’s belief that the entire industry was supported by his father’s insistent consumption of them. 

Walburga was as large as a small boat and was the complete opposite of her husband. She was always upset, if she had nothing to be upset about then her whole life ground to a stop and she could do nothing but look around helplessly. This rarely happened, because when she had nothing to be angry at, she generally fell back on being upset with Sirius. She had small beady eyes that barely shown out underneath her eyebrows and her hair was brown and short.

Orion picked up Regulus’s trunk and started to drag it to the car. Walburga took the cage that housed his owl, Lycoris, named after one of their great uncles. 

Sirius dragged his own trunk while simultaneously holding his broom and his own owl, Godric, who he had named just to see the look on his parent’s faces.

It goes without saying, of course, that they were horrified. 

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Sirius muttered sarcastically from behind.

Walburga turned around. “Don’t be so dramatic, Sirius, you’re managing just fine.”

Sirius bit back a curse and continued to walk with his trunk handle slipping out of his hand and his broom handle poking him in the face. 

It was fine. He didn’t have long and then he would be back at Hogwarts. He just had this one summer left, he would turn seventeen in March, he could move out. He only had three months of summer. Just three.

They reached the car and threw both trunks in the back and carried their owls on their laps. Godric was ruffling his feathers irritably in the car.

“I know how you feel,” Sirius muttered to him.

Regulus climbed in the back of the car next to Sirius and gave him a pained look. Sirius had no idea what that meant. 

Regulus was almost an exact replica of his father, except without the affinity for cockroach clusters. He looked the same and he acted the same. Sirius sometimes wondered where all of Walburga’s temper had gone when she gave Regulus half of her genes. 

Orion slid into the front seat while Walburga somehow managed to fit into the front seat.

“How were your final exams, Regulus?” Orion asked as he backed out.

“They were fine, I think I actually passed History of Magic.” 

“Well done,” Orion said. 

Sirius looked out the window. He was sure that he had gotten at least an _Exceeds Expectations_ on his O.W.L. for History of Magic, but he wouldn’t hear any encouraging words about it when his marks came. He pressed his lips together tightly.

Regulus didn’t continue to talk, even though there were several other exams that he could have complained or bragged about.

Their parents asked him a couple more questions but Regulus always responded with short answers, and they gave up after a little while. 

Sirius wasn’t sure why Regulus wasn’t basking in the attention like he normally did every summer. 

They pulled up in front of number 12 Grimmauld Place just as the sun was setting, and Sirius repressed a grimace at the place where so many nightmares had taken place. 

He _hated_ this house. 

Sirius got out of the car after everyone else, not finding the motivation to go inside. As a result he was blocked from the back of the car for several minutes as his parents took all of Regulus’s luggage inside for him.

Sirius dragged his trunk out of the back of the car, tucked his broom under his arm and carried Godric by the top of his cage. 

The door slammed closed just as he stepped on the porch, and he didn’t have any free hands to open it.

He sighed, setting Godric down and then pulled the door open, propping it open with his hips while he struggled to drag his trunk past his legs and through the doorway. 

The stairs were another adventure altogether.

It took about three days. Slowly Sirius felt himself slowly cracking right down the middle. On the few occasions that he had to venture out of his room he heard horrible things said in an upbeat voice.

“The Dark Lord has enlisted the giants to our cause,” his mother said once with a maniacal smile on her face. Sirius had beat a hasty retreat, almost stumbling on the stairs as he bounded up them. 

The next day, while Orion sat at the table reading the Prophet and eating cockroach clusters he said, “The Bones’s were killed yesterday.”

“Good riddance too,” Walburga answered as Kreacher, their house elf served her pudding. “Filthy little blood traitors.”

“Filthy little blood traitors,” Kreacher muttered. 

Sirius turned around. “They live next to the Potters.” Neither of his parents looked up. “Were the Potters hurt?” Sirius demanded.

“Unfortunately not,” Walburga said coldly.

Sirius slammed his knife down on the table and took his sandwich up to his room to eat in peace. 

The third day was the final straw. Orion knocked on Sirius’s door and said, “Come down for supper, Sirius, Regulus says he has news to tell us all.”

Sirius sat on the bed for a full ten minutes before his mother’s shouting became too much and he ventured out.

“If this is about your second year girlfriend, I don’t want to hear about it,” Sirius said to Regulus as he swept into the kitchen.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Walburga asked Regulus.

He blushed and squirmed in his seat. “No,” was his short and quiet answer.

Walburga sat back in her chair again, which creaked in protest of her weight. “Kreacher!” she screamed shrilly. 

The house elf appeared in a loud crack.

“Bring out the food,” she said without any affection in her voice, even though adoration was pouring out of his eyes for her.

He snapped his fingers and the food from the kitchen started to float over. 

Some sort of lasagna floated over, Sirius tried not to inhale too much. It had been made abundantly clear over the years that Kreacher was not a good cook. After coming back from Hogwarts, where the House Elves had cooking skills that made food divine, Sirius found this hard to bear.

When he reached for the spatula to get his food Walburga slapped his hand and said, “Regulus first.”

Regulus pursed his lips and cut himself a square, wrinkling his nose as he transferred it to his plate. 

Walburga went next, and the Orion.

“May I?” Sirius asked as condescendingly as possible.

Walburga wrinkled her nose at him. “If you must,” she said. 

“I must,” Sirius affirmed and then cut himself a square. It looked more like blood than sauce that was oozing out of the dish. He found it quite disconcerting that he wouldn’t be surprised if Kreacher had used actual blood.

“So what do you have to tell us, son?” Orion asked with a smile towards Regulus.

“Right,” Regulus put down his fork, and Sirius followed suit, only too happy to have any excuse which meant not eating.

Regulus folded his hands on the table. “I did a lot of thinking this term,” he said. “You know I’ve been growing closer to Mulciber and Avery.”

Walburga and Orion nodded. “We talked a lot this year about the Dark Lord, and his goals, and the way life would be if he took over.”

“When,” Orion corrected. “When he took over.”

“Of course,” Regulus murmured, bowing his head. “And then the Hogsmeade Attack took place.”

“Oh, dear, did you help plan that?” Walburga asked.

“I did,” Regulus answered.

Walburga beamed. “Oh, my dear, I’m so proud of you.”

“Are you joking?” Sirius asked, and the beaming expressions fell off of his parent’s faces like a light shut off as they turned towards him. “You’re encouraging this? Children almost died in that fight, _I_ almost died in that fight.”

“You wouldn’t have if you hadn’t fought back,” Regulus shot at him.

“Of course I fought back! They were trying to injure innocent people, kids!” Sirius was almost shouting now, and he was trying to hold back, but this had been a long time coming. It was almost shocking that it hadn’t come before now, honestly. “I cannot believe that you are encouraging the innocent slaughter of children!”

“Of course we are!” Walburga shouted back. “They’re Mudbloods, traitors, if they don’t support the Dark Lord than what use are they?”

Sirius dragged his hands over his face. “Oh, Merlin, you’re mad. You’re bloody mad. I cannot believe that I turned out as decent as I did with parents like you.”

“ _Decent?”_ Orion came into the argument suddenly, Sirius couldn’t even remember the last time Orion had shouted at him. “You are not decent. You’re in _Gryffindor_ , you’re friends with that Potter boy! If you think you are in anyway decent, then you are sorely mistaken.”

Sirius stared at him, trying not to show exactly how much that had hurt him. This was so sick, this was so sick that he still needed approval from these monsters. What was wrong with him?

“Can we get back  on point please?” Regulus said quietly.

“Of course, dear,” Walburga said. Instantly it was all smiles again, and Sirius was forgotten at the end of the table. 

“Okay, well after the Hogsmeade attack I made a choice.” Regulus looked down at the table. “I decided to become a Death Eater.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Walburga exclaimed. Sirius didn’t think that she could look any happier.

Orion was grinning from ear to ear. “I’m so proud, my son, a servant of the Dark Lord!”

Sirius stared at them. “Bloody hell.”

Maybe he could talk Regulus out of it, maybe he could convince him that their parents were lunatics and they could move out together next summer . . . 

“We’ll have to make arrangements for you to have the Dark Mark on your arm,” Walburga said, beaming.

“No need,” Regulus said, he held his arm out and pulled the sleeve up. His hand was clenched into a fist and his skin was pale white. The dark ink on his forearm stood out incredibly clearly. The skull with the snake.

Sirius jumped up and grabbed his brothers arm, making sure that the Mark was real. He stared at Regulus in horror. 

Kreacher from the side of the room breathed, “It’s so beautiful. . . .”

“Oh, darling. . . .” Walburga sighed.

“I don’t think I have ever been more proud,” Orion whispered.

Sirius dropped his brother’s arm and backed away, bumping into the corner of the table violently. “No,” he said. “no. No. _no_. _No. NO._ _NO!”_  

“Sirius! Don’t ruin the moment!” Walburga snapped at him.

That was the first time in three years that she had actually used his name. “RUIN THE MOMENT? He’s a kid!”

“I’m only a year younger than you!”

“He could be killed!” Sirius shouted at them. 

“Then he’ll die for a good cause,” Orion said calmly.

“I knew you were sick, I knew that, but _this_ , allowing your son to go out and fight when he’s fifteen. . . .”

“You had no problem fighting when they attacked Hogsmeade,” Regulus muttered rebelliously.

“They were attacking me, James had my back, and I had his. Can you honestly say that you trust _anyone_ in Voldemort’s circle?”

Regulus gasped.

Walburga moved faster than Sirius had ever seen, got right up into his face and slapped him hard across his face. “ _Don’t say his name,”_ she hissed at him. “You’re not worthy. _Traitor._ ”

“ _Voldemort!_ ” he shouted right into her face. “Voldemort is a bloody lunatic, and so are you!”

Walburga pulled her wand out, and Sirius reacted instantly, plunging a hand into his robes. 

She pointed her wand at him wordlessly, a gleeful light in her eyes, and a green light shot out of the end.

“ _Protego!_ ” Sirius yelled, casting a strong shield charm. 

He was reasonably sure that his own mother had just tried to use the Killing Curse on him. 

They stood there, across from each other, staring. Regulus looked dumbfounded, and Orion was strangely calm.

“I’m leaving,” Sirius said thickly, rotating around the table with his wand still pointed at his mother.

Orion stood up, placing his fists on the table. “Don’t bother coming back.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Sirius snapped and ran up the stairs to his room. It was a mess, the result of spending three days holed up in it. 

He started to run around his room, throwing everything he could find in his trunk. The sooner he could get out of this house the better. It took him five minutes of frenzied packing before he was done.

He shut his trunk firmly. He grabbed his broom and Godric and then started down the stairs.

His trunk thumped with every step.

Regulus was waiting on the landing. “Sirius,” he said.

“Don’t talk to me,” Sirius said. “You were my last hope for this place, the absolute last hope. And I’m done.”

He propped the door open with his hips again, ready to repeat the whole awkward performance of shoving his trunk past his legs.

Regulus stepped forward and held the door for him. Sirius stared at him for a moment, and then dragged his trunk through the doorway and stumbled out onto the street that was just going dark. 

He stopped at the edge of the street, he had no where to go next.

Sirius looked up at the sky, where he could see stars already and took a deep breath.

Then he started to walk down the street. He just had to get away from that house. He felt like screaming. 

If he was going to be honest with himself, there was only one place he wanted to go, but he had no way to get there. 

He could fly, he supposed, but Muggles might see him, and he wasn’t sure he could actually fly with the weight of his trunk. 

He could Apparate. He had studied the theory once, in his third year, when he was keen on doing every sort of magic that he was underage for. 

All you had to do was concentrate really hard on where you wanted to go. 

Godric ruffled his wings angrily, he didn’t like to be carried in his cage very much. 

Sirius wasn’t sure if he could Apparate with animals in tow. He opened the cage and took Godric out. 

“Meet me at James’s house,” he told his owl. “I’ll see you at the Potter’s.”

Godric took off in a flurry of feathers and winged away silently.

Sirius took a good hold of his trunk, broom and empty cage and concentrated really hard on number 17 Godric’s Hollow. He could picture everything about it, it was more home to him than number 12 Grimmauld place.

He could even smell it, and then he turned on the spot, keeping the image in his mind as clearly as he could.

The world seemed to converge on him and he felt all the locations of the world press in against his body, until suddenly they were gone, and he was standing in knee high grass. He opened his eyes cautiously.

He was at the edge of Godric’s Hollow, he felt a swooping relief go through his stomach, he had actually done it, and he wasn’t too far off the mark. All his major appendages were there, although on closer inspection, he realized he was missing the fingernail on his pinkie finger of his right hand.

He smiled a little bit, feeling quite proud of himself. He hid his trunk, broom and cage as best as he could in the grasses and then concentrated and shifted into a large black dog.

He padded down the streets that were lit with a warm glow and sniffed at the air. It smelled like fresh baked good, chocolate biscuits in particular, and the smell got stronger as he approached the Potter’s house.

He sat back on his haunches as he studied the familiar house and hoped that James had forgiven him for shouting at him and luring Snape so close to Remus at full moon. 

He looked towards the sky and let out a howl.

Padfoot’s ears perked up as he heard someone fall upstairs, and then the curtain to James’s window was pulled back and his face looked down. Padfoot’s tail wagged a little bit.

He could hear James clatter down the stairs and him say to his parents, “Outside, got to check something for Astronomy.”

James slipped out of the door and walked over to the bushes, where Padfoot had gone to change back into a human. 

James gripped him in a tight hug really fast and then stood back to talk to Sirius.

“Look,” Sirius began, “I’m really sorry about Snape, and I’m really sorry for yelling at you the other day, I shouldn’t have done it.”

James shrugged a little bit. “You were right. And you did save my life at Hogsmeade so we’re even for the Snape thing.” James looked at him more closely, “But you didn’t come here just to apologize, what are you doing here?”

“I got into a fight with my parents about the ethics of what Voldemort is trying to do, and then Regulus revealed that he’s gotten the Dark Mark, and I totally lost it and took my stuff and Apparated here.” 

“You Apparated?” James’s look of total disbelief was gratifying. “How did you do that?”

Sirius shrugged, “I concentrated really hard.”

“Okay, well we’re going to tell my parents that you took a bus, I don’t think they’d be okay with you Apparating with no experience.”

Sirius let his face relax into a smile. “Deal,” he said.

“Where’s your stuff?” James asked.

“I hid it at the edge of town,” Sirius said.

James started to walk and Sirius hurried to catch up. “So, it was really bad?” James asked, looking sideways at him.

“Yeah. They told me I was the biggest disappointment of their lives because I didn’t support the murder of innocent people, and I told them they were mad.”

“I’m sorry,” James said quietly.

Sirius shrugged. “It had to happen sometime. It was all leading up to this. I’m surprised that it took this long for me to start yelling at them.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. They reached the place where Sirius’s things were kept. James grabbed hold of the end of his trunk and started to haul it towards the village. Sirius grabbed the cage and the broom.

“Listen,” James said. “It’s not your fault that you were born into a family of nutters. And the fact that you’ve been able to see what’s right in the world is amazing. I mean, it shows how strong you are. And I know that nothing can replace a family, but you have me and Remus and Wormtail. And you’ll always have us. And you know that my parents love you like a son, and . . . what I’m trying to say is that you’re not alone.”

“Thanks,” Sirius said quietly. 

They were back in front of James’s house again. 

“Well, come on,” James said and he led the way into the house with Sirius close behind.

The room beyond smelled of baking biscuits. Two couches were set at an angle, with bookcases that lined the walls. To the left was the dining room with the kitchen just slightly further. The right showed a hallway and stairs.

Clay looked up from the book he was reading on the couch, _Theories on Memory Loss and Ten Potions to Help Cure it!_

“Astronomy?” He asked his son with one eyebrow raised.

Eliza came into the room from the kitchen, she started to take her flour smeared apron off.

“Well, to be fair, I am named after the brightest star in the night sky,” Sirius said, “I think I count as Astronomy.”

Eliza laughed, and tossed her apron on the table as she came to hug Sirius.

“Are you hungry dear?” she asked him.

Sirius nodded.

“James take his things up to your room and set up the extra bed, will you?” Eliza asked her son. 

James nodded and began to haul the trunk to the stairs. 

“Come into the kitchen,” Eliza said to Sirius, and he followed her in.

She started to make some soup. “What happened?” she asked him, and Clay came in from the living room to hear.

Sirius told the story again, omitting the killing curse. 

Eliza shook her head, and Clay said, “Well, it’s about time you ran away,” and smiled at Sirius. 

“You’ll stay with us for the rest of the summer, of course,” Eliza said simply as she turned and ladled some of the soup into a bowl and passed it to him. 

“Thank you,” Sirius said, speaking for more than the soup.

Eliza blushed a little bit, and Clay clapped his hand on Sirius’s shoulder wordlessly.

Something about this night kept calling for speeches apparently, because Sirius began to talk again. 

“Honestly, thank you, you’ve always been there for me. You’re more like my parents than they are.”

He was going to say more, but he found himself getting choked up, so he started to eat the soup instead. 

Eliza reached over to grip his wrist. “I hope you know that we love you,” she said quietly.

Sirius busied himself with the soup again to hide his misty eyes. Clay drifted back to the living room and Eliza pulled biscuits out of the oven. She started to pile them onto the plate. She slid them onto the counter next to Sirius.

“Take these up when you go to join James okay?” she asked.

Sirius nodded, slurping up the last bit of soup and going to put the dish in the sink. 

He turned around and hugged Eliza on impulse. He could feel her surprise in the stiffness of her muscles, and then she relaxed and hugged him back. 

He let go wordlessly and then lifted the plate from the counter and started up the stairs. 

James was sitting in his bed, reading a spell book that looked like it had come from downstairs. 

An identical bed was two feet away from it, and James looked up for a moment. “Dad came in and transfigured the cot into a real bed.”

Sirius placed the plate of biscuits on the nightstand, filching one. He hopped up onto the bed.

“What are you reading?”

“I’m researching,” James said a bit vaguely, turning a page.

Sirius barked a laugh. “Over summer? What in the world are you researching that could be _that_ important?” 

James frowned at him. “It’s very important. Life changing maybe, well, for the next two years. I’ve sent an owl to Remus about it, he disapproves throughly, but he’s still helping. I didn’t think you or Wormtail would want to do research over the summer. Although I did just send Ignotus to you about it, I guess he’ll end up back here eventually. Then we can send him to Wormtail.”

Sirius sat back. “Are you going to tell me what you’re talking about now?”

James sat straight up. “HA! Found it!” he said triumphantly. He carefully pulled a piece of paper off of the nightstand and marked the page. Then he took a biscuit and turned to Sirius, “A map,” he said.

“A map of what?” Sirius asked.

“Hogwarts,” James said as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“We already know every square inch of Hogwarts.”

“Yes,” James held up a finger. “But we don’t know where everyone is in every square inch of Hogwarts.” James pointed at the book.

Sirius picked it up and opened it to the marked page. The top had _Tracking Spell_ scrawled across in calligraphy and very detailed instructions underneath. 

“This looks really difficult,” Sirius said as he scanned the page. “Also, this is for one person, how are we supposed to track everyone in Hogwarts?”

James’s face fell slightly, “Well, that’s the tricky bit. We’ll figure it out, we’ve done more complicated magic.” He grinned at Sirius, knowing that they were both thinking of the Animagus potion that had brewed in their dorm bathroom for three months. 

Sirius shrugged and lay back on the bed.

“Think of the possibilities though,” James said. “I mean, we can’t all fit under the invisibility cloak, we’re all too tall, but we wouldn’t need to with this map. We’d know where everyone was. I suppose we’d have to fix it so that it works with invisibility cloaks though, and polyjuice potion. . . “ He trailed off, staring at the ceiling.

James stood up and walked over towards the door. “Light out?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sirius said softly.

He flicked out the light and came back to lay on his bed. 

Apparently James was tired, because he fell asleep quickly, his soft snores filling the room. Sirius lay awake much longer. He couldn’t stop thinking about his family. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Regulus was going to be a Death Eater, and how he would be killed so soon. He didn’t particularly like his brother, but he deserved better than that.

And he couldn’t erase the image of his mother smiling as she tried to kill him.

After a while he stood up, thinking that if he couldn’t sleep then maybe he could sneak out and run around as a dog for awhile. That always seemed to calm him down. 

He skirted around the end of James’s bed and out into the hallway, he crept down the stairs, the rooms at the end of the stairs were dark. 

The only light was coming from underneath the door at the end of the hallway. Voices were drifting down the hallway.

Sirius crept closer.

Eliza was crying, he could tell from the way her voice cracked occasionally. “But h-how could they do that to their own son?”

“Both of their sons” Clay said reasonably, “Kicking Sirius out for his beliefs, but also Regulus. They allowed him to get the Dark Mark. How old is he? Fifteen?”

Fourteen, Sirius corrected silently. 

“I don’t even un-understand how they ca-can do that,” Eliza sobbed.

Sirius didn’t even think he could imagine Walburga crying this way even for Regulus, let alone some boy who she didn’t even give birth to.

“I know,” Clay said, trying to comfort his wife.

“Oooo, if I ever get a chance to duel with them...” Eliza said with an almost vicious edge to her words.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at that.

“I don’t think there will be a chance for that anytime soon,” Clay said, Sirius could hear the smile in his voice.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“I’m not, I just don’t think you could actually hurt them.”

“Don’t underestimate what I would do for my sons,” Eliza said to him, and Clay really did laugh then.

Sirius stepped away from the door, avoiding the squeaky bits of the floor from experience. He stepped out into the cool night air and shifted into a black dog. He bounded off into the night, the possessive _my_ and plural _sons_ still echoing through his head.


	5. The Ingredients of a Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus's point of view.

Lupin sat at the desk in his room, with a book open on one side and parchment on the other. He was reading a letter that had just arrived with Godric, who was drinking water on top of the wardrobe. 

 

Moony,

James is insisting on researching this bloody map of his at every available moment. We’ve only played Quidditch twice in the entire month since I’ve been here, which shows you just how dedicated he is. Anyway, he says that if you have any ‘relevant information’ to send it back with Godric. He’s already found a tracking spell, but it needs to be modified, which is your area of expertise. 

Also, on Saturday (or I guess today, by the time you get this) the best band known to Wizard-kind (also known as The Three Jinxes) is playing at a club in Godric’s Hollow. I think everyone’s getting here by floo powder, so you should come and try to get James to talk about something other than his map for two seconds. 

The Three Jinxes start playing at 10, please come to help me jinx James if nothing else.

 

Padfoot           

 

Remus pulled out ink and a piece of parchment, scribbling out the incantation of the spell he had found for James, not bothering to write anything else because hopefully he would see them tonight. 

He attached the parchment to Godric’s leg  and then let him out the window. Remus sighed, looking back at his room. Books lay everywhere, the result of thumbing through them for anything helpful, and then tossing them aside. His robes were balled up in a corner, and his trunk was lying open, with almost nothing inside of it. He sighed, looking at the doorway, wondering if anyone was going to come in for the next couple minutes.

Magic outside of Hogwarts was, strictly speaking, illegal, but the Ministry had no way of telling under-age magic from anything else. So he could just wave his wand and his room could be clean again.

He slid his hand into his pocket to grasp the end of his wand, but then he sighed and then began to clean by hand.

He got about five minutes into it when his mother yelled for supper from the kitchen.

He abandoned his project somewhat gratefully and went down the hallway to the kitchen.

His mother, Rowena, placed a pot of soup on the table. The back door opened and a big burly man stomped in, Adrian Lupin. Remus took after his mother, with her slight frame and soft smile. He was unsure exactly where his father had come into the equation when it came to looks. It seemed like he had gotten nothing of Adrian, with his square chin and blue eyes.

Adrian sat at the table and Rowena came in from the kitchen with bowls for everyone.

Remus cocked his head to the side as he heard little feet running down the hallway. Late, as usual, Klara ran in and then hopped up onto her chair, beaming.

Adrian and Rowena smiled at her indulgently, and ignored Remus altogether.

He couldn’t feel bad, or jealous. The truth of the matter was that Klara was his favorite person in the whole world, and he couldn’t resent her for the attention she got. 

She was nine years old, she had dark brown hair that was curly and usually in a mess, and she had dimples that made her completely adorable when she smiled. 

Klara smiled a lot.

The dinner table was mostly silent as they all ate around the table. Rowena was reading a book as she ate, and Adrian was staring out the window. Klara was eating viciously, and within minutes she had emptied her bowl. 

“May I be excused?” she asked, the power of her voice drawing everyone’s eyes.

“Yes, dear,” Rowena said, and she turned back to her books.

Klara tore down the hallway back to her room. They could hear the door slam, and then it was all silent again.

Remus put his spoon down. “Is it alright if I floo to Godric’s Hollow tonight?” he asked carefully. “Three Jinxes is playing.”

“Who?” Adrian asked, still looking out the window.

“A band,” Remus said, avoiding looking at his father as well, “my favorite band actually.”

Rowena looked up at Adrian, and Adrian looked at Rowena and they seemed to come to a silent consensus. Remus stared at the table. There was a burn mark about the length of his thumb on it. That hadn’t been there last summer.

“That’s fine,” Rowena said vaguely.

Remus nodded once, and stood, taking his bowl and Klara’s and putting it in the sink before walking down the hallway and walking into his room. 

An owl was sitting on his windowsill. A small grey owl.

He hurried over, almost tripping over himself as he went to go read the attached letter.

Dear Remus,

I’m sorry, I know you said that I could ask you questions, but I feel like I’m bombarding you. This last full moon I couldn’t stay in the house, I had to go outside and stare at the moon. I have no idea if this is normal, and I don’t think anyone else does either, since there hasn’t been a case like mine. 

My family has been surprisingly accommodating, they keep telling me not to be embarrassed of anything. I want to snap at them, and tell them the have no idea what I’m going through. I don’t even know what I’m going through. But they’ve been so nice that I can’t do that.

It’s like everything is crashing down around me and the world keeps turning unaware or uncaring of my troubles. And as the world turns it brings the moon into the sky again, taunting me.

Why are Werewolves connected to the moon anyway? I’ve never actually understood this, what is it about the lunar cycle that makes men turn into wolves? There has to be a cause, but I’m just not sure what it is. Do you have any idea?

Thank you for writing me, it’s made everything so much easier.

 

Astrid

 

P.S. I think a lot of people are going to see The Three Jinxes at Godric’s Hollow tonight, if you came we could actually talk in person again.

 

Remus sat back in his chair, smiling just a little bit. He made things easier.

“Who’s that from?” Klara asked from his elbow.

Remus controlled the reflexive jerk of his arm, otherwise he would have hit his little sister in the face. 

He turned to her. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“I’m very quiet,” she said with a serious look on her face. It looked a little bit adorable with her round cheeks.

Remus bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her, that, he had learned from experience, would make her mad.

“Who’s that from?”  she insisted.

“A friend,” he said.

“What friend?”

“A girl named Astrid,” Remus said.

Klara scowled. She turned and climbed up onto his bed and sat on it, looking around imperiously.

“Your room is messy,” she said.

Remus laughed. “Yes,” he agreed.

“Why don’t mum and dad ever look at you?” she asked. Klara was looking right at him, in a way that made him feel like he couldn’t dodge the question.

“They’re . . . disappointed in me.” Remus spoke slowly, wondering exactly how he could explain this.

“Why?”

“You never stop asking questions.” Remus looked down at Astrid’s letter again, trying to figure out how he was going to tell his little sister why his parents hated him.

But then suddenly, Klara changed tracks. “Do you fancy Astrid?”

“What?” 

“Are you going to kiss her?”

“I don’t even know if I fancy her, why would I kiss her?” Remus asked her.

Klara’s face cleared a little bit, her scowl lifting slightly. “Good.” she said firmly and she hopped off of the bed.

“Why is that good?”

“I don’t want you to get married and leave.”

Remus laughed, which she didn’t like because she scowled again. “I’m not getting married anytime soon,” he promised her. “I still have two years of school left, and even then the prospects aren’t too bright.” 

A werewolf does not get very many dates.

Klara stuck her pinky finger out. “Promise?” she asked.

He hooked his finger with hers. “Promise.”

 *   *   *

The pub, which was called The Raven and the Writing desk, but everyone called it The Raven for short, was teeming with Hogwarts students.

Contrary to popular belief, Lewis Carroll was actually a wizard. The question of why a raven is like a writing desk had been an old wizard riddle for ages, long before Carroll ever wrote it down.

The bass line of The Three Jinxes music was washing over the students, making their chests throb and their bodies jump up and down.

Lupin was standing at the back of the crowd with James, Sirius and Wormtail.

“Are you alright?” he asked Wormtail, who seemed jumpier than usual. He kept looking over his shoulder like someone was going to come kidnap him.

“I’m fine,” Wormtail muttered.

“So, what have you found out?” James asked Remus eagerly.

Off to the side Sirius rolled his eyes dramatically. 

“Okay, well I think we can modify the tracking spell,” Remus said to him. “I’m almost sure of it in fact, we’ll just have to try it a couple of times to get it right. Also, I’m thinking that I’ve figured out a way to make sure the map shows people with invisibility cloaks, but we’ll have to test that too.”

“Brilliant,” James said with a grin. “But a question,” he added, “is there anyway we can get the room of Requirememnt on the map?”

Sirius rolled his eyes again. “It’s called Unplottable for a reason, James.”

Remus shrugged, “He’s right, we can’t get that on there.”

“But all the secret passageways will be there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” James said. “Also, I think that I’ve found out a way to make sure that Animagus show up as well.”

Wormtail frowned. “That’s dangerous,” he said.

James turned to him.

“Well, what if someone else found the map? They’d see us, wouldn’t they?” Wormtail squeaked.

“Also, they could figure out Moony’s big mystery,” Sirius added.

Remus waved his hand, “We’ll figure out a way that makes it so only we can work it, and then it’ll be fine.”

“Right, no more talking about this now,” Sirius declared. “And I’m serious, this is a fun night, not a night for research.”

James turned to him and gave him a sarcastic salute before muttering, “I’m going to get drinks.”

James disappeared for a moment, and Sirius turned to Lupin.

“So how’s your furry little problem coming along without us?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. Remus didn’t think he actually wanted to know, he just got pleasure out of mentioning The Forbidden Subject in public.

“It’s fine,” Remus said firmly.

James started to walk back with Firewhiskey for everyone, before he got sidetracked by Lily.

It looked like she declined his offer of the drink and closed the conversation as fast as she could. 

James walked back to them with a dejected look on his face. He passed the bottles around. 

Sirius, of course, took a long drink immediately, Wormtail accepted his with trepidation.

James held one out to Remus, who said, “No,” in a flat voice.

“Come on, Moony, it’s Firewhiskey.”

“Absolutely not.” 

Remus turned away from James and looked out over the crowd, the thumping beat of the bass coming to an end with the song.

“Thanks for coming out tonight,” the lead singer said with a deep voice. “Next song is our number one hit, Love Potion.”

Remus broke away from the group of his friends to walk across the pub. He touched Astrid lightly on the shoulder, and she spun around. When she saw his face she smiled up at him.

He took one second to decide, and then wrapped his arms around her bony shoulders and hugged her to his chest. 

She slid her arms around his waist in return, and held on a second longer once he had already started to pull away.

He had to admit, that felt rather good, that she had wanted to hang on. 

He looked down at her and said, “I don’t really know anything about what is normal for people like you, unfortunately, although I would hazard a guess that staring at the moon isn’t that weird, I don’t know why Werewolves are connected to the moon at all, I’d never really thought about it. And you’re lucky to have such a supportive family.”

She nodded, biting her bottom lip. “Okay,” she said once she had absorbed the information. She smiled up at him, “Well, I’m going to do some research on the moon thing.”

He smiled at her, looking down at what she was wearing. “You’re wearing long sleeves, aren’t you hot?”

She tugged at the hem of her sleeve. “The scars put people off,” she said self consciously, looking down at the ground.

Remus looked around, and then pulled her off to the side of the pub. He leaned against the wall.

“May I?” He asked.

She looked up at him, worry plain in her eyes. But she pushed the sleeve up on her left arm anyway.

He touched her wrist with gentle fingers, pulling her arm up closer to his eyes. 

It was fascinating, he couldn’t help thinking about the way Fenrir would have used his claws on part of her skin and teeth on others. It was strange, because it was canine teeth, so Greyback would have changed a little bit at a time when it wasn’t full moon.

Then, suddenly his fascination ended, and he realized what that had meant for Astrid.

He took a deep breath and pulled her sleeve down for her again.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said.

“You’re not the one that did it,” Astrid said, “you don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

Remus looked at her. She was staring towards the stage, at the drummer of The Three Jinxes. The light was playing off her face at strange angles.

He had lied to Klara earlier, he did fancy Astrid. And he did want to kiss her.

“Anyway,” Astrid turned to him again, and yelled over the music, “I’m starting to think that you lied to me.”

“What?” Remus asked, taken aback.

“You didn’t have a family member who was attacked by a werewolf did you?” she asked him. 

Remus felt his heart sink. 

Endings are always hard, but they are especially hard when hopes and dreams don’t even have time to be recognized.

“It’s you right?” Astrid asked.

Remus sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Yes,” he said. 

She hit his arm, “Why didn’t you just tell me?” she demanded, looking hurt.

What the hell was going on? Remus wondered. Why did she look hurt? She should be running in the other direction.

“Because generally people don’t like Werewolves, and I wanted to help you.”

She rolled her eyes, “Well, it’s not like I have much room to discriminate,” she gestured at her arm. 

The song in the background ended. There was one moment of silence, and then another song started up.

Astrid was looking up at him with large eyes. 

Remus shrugged. “Some people wouldn’t see it that way, I mean a lot of people think that when people are bitten they should just be killed, to prevent the disease from being passed on.”

Astrid looked horrified. “Did you think I would think that?” she asked. Her words came out hard.

“No!” Remus said, “I just didn’t want to take the chance of you rejecting me without getting to know me first.”

The band continued to play behind them, the lyrics interrupting their conversation.

__

_She’s got horrifying aptitude for a jinx,_

_I’d never want to get in her way_

_she likes to talk in riddles like a sphinx_

_And her smile lights up my whole day_

 

“Okay, well, now I know you, and I know what you are, and I still like you.” She seemed upset.

Remus froze on hearing the words come out of her mouth. He looked down at her. Astrid was biting her lip and looking down at the ground.

Remus felt a smile unfurl on his face, almost unconsciously. His hands twitched towards her waist, but he stopped himself.

“I’m sorry,” she said and looked off to the side. “I -er- haven’t done this before, and it’s okay if that’s not what you want, and-”

Remus laughed, he didn’t mean to, not when she was feeling so uncomfortable, but he couldn’t help it. He felt _good._ For the first time in a long time.

“I fancy you,” he assured her.

She looked up at him, and her face cleared, a smile coming out onto her face. 

 

_Sometimes all they need is a kiss_

_And that’s the ingredients of a Witch!_

__

Remus looked down at her and he imagined encompassing her waist with his hands and pushing her up against the wall that was so conveniently there. He wanted to feel her soft body against his, and he wanted to feel her hand cupping his neck, and he wanted to kiss her lips. Not knowing what that felt like, it was almost painful.

But he did none of these things, he just smiled at Astrid, and when she took a small breath and slipped her hand into his, he smiled wider.

The band started to leave the stage. 

“Oh! What time is it?” Astrid asked.

Remus checked his watch. “It’s ten forty-five.”

She bit her lip, looking up at him. “My parents are expecting me by eleven, I have to go.” She looked extremely hesitant to leave, and her hand was gripping his tightly.

He did put his hands on her waist then and pull her near, but only for a hug. He held her for longer than was technically necessary.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear, “I really do have to go, I’ll write you though, and there’s only two months of vacation left and we’ll be back at school.”

Lupin nodded, his throat constricting. Two months until she would watch him disappear at every full moon, and saw the effects of what he was.

How could she be okay with that?

He let her go, and she walked away, looking back twice.

Remus went back to stand with James and Sirius again. They waggled their eyebrows at him as he approached. 

He ignored them with dignity. “Where’s Peter?” he asked.

“He went home,” Sirius said.

James grinned at him with mischief in his eyes. “So, Remus, have anything you care to tell us?” he asked.

Remus looked up at the ceiling, “Nope,” he said, “can’t think of anything.”

James smiled wider than was necessary.

“Does she know?” Sirius asked, “About. . .”

Remus nodded. 

“Well, it’s about time you snapped out of your self-indulgent funk and found someone,” James said lightly.

“Self indulgent funk?” Remus echoed.

James shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, if the girl is half decent, she won’t mind what you are. But you seem convinced that everyone will run away screaming if you tell anyone.”

“Most people do run away screaming.” Remus pointed out.

“What are we? Cracked bezoar stones?” Sirius asked, pointing between himself and James.

“You are not most people.”

“True enough,” James allowed, “but we are also decent people.” He frowned. “Most of the time,” he amended. 

Remus laughed at him, and after a moment, James and Sirius joined in. It felt good.

 *   *   *

Remus stepped out of his fireplace cautiously, shaking the ash from his shoes. The house was quiet and dark. Snores were coming from his parent’s room. 

Remus crept down the hall and slipped into his room silently.

Klara was laying on his bed, facing away from the window fast asleep. She had her teddy bear with her, she was clutching it tightly. Remus changed into pajamas as quietly as he could.

He started to walk towards the bed, intending to pick Klara up and carry her back to her bed, but he hit his knee on the bed post. He clutched it, hopping around on one leg waiting for the pain to subside.

Kara opened her eyes and held her arms out to him. “‘Mus?” she asked. She had called him that every since she could speak, she wasn’t particularly good at pronouncing R’s back then. He hated it when anyone else called him that. 

He gritted his teeth, trying not to swear in front of his sister. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “What are you doing in my bed?” he whispered.

“I had a nightmare,” she whispered back. “Mum and dad don’t like it when I go into their room.”

Remus climbed up onto the bed next to her and she immediately snuggled into his chest, her teddy bear in between them.

“Can I sleep here?” she asked.

“Yes.” Denying her anything when she spoke in that little-girl voice was hard, and was a power that she abused.

“What was your nightmare about?” He asked her.

She shook her head vigorously. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She pulled back from him and looked up, “You smell weird,” she said.

He smiled a little bit, he knew what she was talking about. He could still smell Astrid on his skin. 

“I hugged Astrid when I saw her tonight, you can probably smell her,” he whispered back, and because it was dark he made absolutely no effort to hide his smile. 

Klara frowned at him, something that made her look even younger. “You do fancy her.”

“I do now,” he admitted. 

“Hmmph.” Klara snorted and settled into the mattress more firmly, hugging her stuffed animal tighter.

“Are you jealous?” Remus asked, tickling her a little bit, that always got her to smile.

“No!” she protested loudly and slapped his hand away. She bit her lip to keep from smiling. She settled her face into a pout again. “You promised you wouldn’t get married,” she said.

“No, I promised I wouldn’t get married for at least two years. And I most likely won’t get married for a long time after that.” Remus said. “I did not promise to restrain from hugging girls that I fancy.”

She peeked up at him. “Fine,” she huffed. They lay there in silence.

The darkness cast deep blue shadows over both of them, and Remus was thinking about how his parents didn’t want to comfort their daughter who was having nightmares.

He had always thought that they had had Klara to have a normal child, one who wasn’t cursed as a Werewolf. It seemed terribly selfish of them to have a child for the sake of having normal offspring and then just ignore her. 

When he moved out he would have to have Klara come visit for extended periods of time, to make sure she knew what normal family relationships were.

Not that he knew what normal family relationships were, of course.

“Will you take me to Hogwarts with you?” Klara asked sleepily.

Remus looked down at her. “You’re not eleven yet,” he said. “Or I would in a heartbeat.” 

“It’s not fair,” she complained as she snuggled in closer.

“I know,” Remus said. “Life hardly ever is.”

And sometimes it was, he thought, thinking of Astrid’s unintended confession and the way they had held each other before she left. 

Klara was a difficult person to share a bed with. As the night goes on, her limbs kept jerking and hitting Remus. At one point she kicked him in the stomach, which knocked the breath out of him, and he lay there for a few moments, catching his breath. He carefully turned her over so that she would kick at air instead of him.

A few minutes later her elbow hit him in the chest. 

If he didn’t love her so much he would have just kicked her out. So he stayed awake, thinking that someday, Klara was going to be standing in a club with a boy who wanted to snog her. 

He didn’t like that idea very much.

He had time to wonder if Astrid had an older brother, before he drifted off to sleep.

He woke up an hour later to Klara kicking his leg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so wonderful to write from his point of view. :)


	6. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Murray Gold, who pushes me out of every writers block I've ever had with his brilliant music.

“Okay, what are the odds that they’ll kiss before the night is through?” James asked he craned his head over the crowds to steal a glance at Astrid and Remus.

Sirius scoffed. “Yeah, right, Remus is too much of a gentleman.”

“Gentleman?” James asked. “What is this thing you speak of?”

Peter watched both of them as they fought about the different factors that would influence how soon Remus would snog Astrid. He couldn’t help but look over his shoulder just to make sure that he had made it away clean.

The band was pounding in his ears, playing Mischief Managed, one of their least popular songs, but it was the favorite of the four friends.

Sirius dropped a hand on his shoulder, making Peter jump. Sirius had, of course, placed his hand right over Peter’s bruise. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Peter said.

Lie.

“Okay,” Sirius gave him a weird look and turned back to James.

Peter rolled his shoulder, but it just made everything hurt more than before. His bruise was probably a nice yellowish green color now. It had, finally, passed beyond the black and blue phase.

“I’m guessing that it’ll happen in early September. The first half.” James said to Sirius.

Sirius shook his head, “I don’t think so, see, you’re underestimating his gentlemanly-ness.”

“That is not a word,” Peter said absently.

“Yeah, but you get the point,” Sirius said. “I’m going with the second half of September.”

“Wormtail? Want to get in on this?” Sirius asked.

Peter looked over at Remus and Astrid quickly, and then glanced away just as fast. “October,” he said.

“Do you really think he’ll wait that long?” James said.

Sirius laughed, “Not everyone moves as fast as you, Prongs.”

James punched Sirius’s shoulder. “Shut it,” he muttered. 

Peter looked from James to Sirius and back again. “Am I missing something?” He asked tentatively.

“James snogged Alice,” Sirius told him.

“I did not!” James hissed, looking around frantically. he took a deep breath smoothed his face out. “I did not snog her,” he told Wormtail very seriously.

“He did,” Sirius said.

“We were having a conversation!” 

“An extremely close one,” Sirius said with his eyebrows raised. He was smirking a little bit.

James looked furious. “Would you stop saying things like that, next thing you know there are going to be rumours spreading about something that never happened. And Alice will be mortified, since she’s seeing Frank!” James spat the words out.

“She is?” Sirius asked, surprised. James nodded tersely. “Oh, I didn’t see that coming,” Sirius smirked again. “And I think you’re just concerned that Lily will hear something.”

“Hear what?” A voice came from behind Peter, and he jumped, making his Firewhiskey spill all over his sleeve. 

It looked like all the color had drained from James’s face. Peter turned around and saw Lily standing there. The heat had made her hair frizzy, and it stood out like a red glow from her face.

“Er-I was just-” Sirius tried.

“It was-” James looked at a total loss of words for the first time in his life.

Lily looked at both of them unimpressed.

Peter looked from James and Sirius to Lily. “They were just taking bets on Remus’s love life,” Peter said.

Truth.

“Sirius didn’t think you would approve,” he continued. 

Lie.

Lily gave them all a strange look. “No offense, but why would I care about that?”

“Well, there was the idea of using mind alternating subjects to make our outcomes sure, but that’s strictly against the rules at Hogwarts, so we would clearly not being doing that.” James said, scratching at the back of his head.

Lie.

“Right,” Sirius jumped in, “and you’re a prefect so you would be morally obligated to stop us.”

Half-truth? That was hard to categorize.

“Okay,” Lily said slowly. She clearly thought they were all mad. “Well, I’m going to go.”

She walked away, sending confused looks behind her as she went.

James let out a huge breath. “Thank you,” he said to Peter.

“That was quick thinking, Wormtail,” Sirius said to him, and threw his arm around Peter, squeezing him.

Peter winced, in that move alone, Sirius had been able to catch three different injuries. If Sirius was going to continue to be touchy then it was time to go.

“I have to go home, my mum will be worried.” Peter said.

Lie. His mum had died five years ago.

“Okay, well, we’ll see at the platform then? In two months?” James said.

Peter nodded. “Yeah, see you then.”

Truth.

“Have a good rest-of-the-summer.” Sirius called after him.

“I will,” Peter said.

Lie. Terrible lie, huge lie, the biggest lie in the history of Wizard-kind.

Peter stumbled out of his fireplace clumsily and then froze, cursing himself silently. There was a slight hope that his father didn’t notice that he had gone out. When it became clear that no one in the house was stirring then Peter tip toed to his room. 

He eased the door open- it had a tendency to squeak. He let out a huge breath when it was silent.

Peter turned around, thinking that he had made it, he was in the clear.

He caught sight of a dark shape in the chair. That was his favorite chair, the only place he actually like in the house. Probably because it sat next to the window, so he could pretend he lived somewhere else, with someone else.

“Where were you?” The dark mass in the chair hardly moved as the rumbling voice reached his ears. 

Peter cringed. 

“I went to a concert,” he whispered.

Truth.

“I can’t hear you.”

The worst part was that there was no anger. Nothing, it was just flat and emotionless.

“I went to a concert,” Peter said louder.

His father, Geddon, stood up. He was so much taller than Peter, so much stronger, so much faster.

Peter took a step back involuntarily. His shoulder hit the wood of the door, which made him cringe again. He had bruises everywhere.

Geddon stepped towards him.

“Why didn’t you ask first?”

Peter fumbled for words. He had lied to his friends easily just a couple minutes ago, where were his words now?

“I’m sorry?” he whispered.

Lie. He wasn’t.

Well, he was sorry that he would be punished for it, but he was not sorry for the actual act.

Geddon raised his hand to his ear. Peter recoiled from his hand automatically. 

“I can’t hear you.” Geddon whispered the words so quietly that Peter had to strain to hear him. 

He wanted to say, “I can’t hear _you._ ” or maybe, “I think you have a hearing problem.”

But even thinking those words made Peter hurt.

Instead, he just said, “I’m sorry.” Louder, and firmer.

“Liar,” Geddon hissed.

Peter had a flash of annoyance. Why make him repeat it if he was just going to accuse him of lying? 

Geddon let his fist connect with Peter’s head. 

Peter crashed to the ground, every touch and every noise sending a very sharp pain through his brain. 

Geddon reached down and wrapped his fingers around Peter’s wrist, pulling him upwards so hard that Peter felt something crack, and a terrible sensation of bone grating bone took place just under his skin.

He gasped in pain. 

Reflex tears were forming at the corners of his eyes, but he just tried to blink them away. He would get beaten worse if he cried. He had learned this from experience.

Geddon saw his eyes misting, “Don’t cry,” he hissed. “Be a man.”

He drove his fist into Peter’s stomach, hard enough to throw Peter against the wall. He could feel where all the new bruises would be in the morning.

The blows came down on his shoulders, and his ribs were a place that Geddon particularly enjoyed to hit. Peter endured it all quietly. 

Geddon did not leave the room for another hour, and Peter sustained many more injuries. 

At the end of it, Geddon stormed out into the hallway, and Peter could hear him go to his own room. Peter stood up carefully, and clutched at the bed post to stop himself from falling to the ground. 

He slid onto the end of the bed, facing the window. He took a deep breath and looked down.

Peter’s left hand was bent out of shape, the wrist at an odd angle and one of the fingers clearly broken.

He lifted it up to examine it closer, and gasped at the pain that shot through his wrist.

His right hand curled around the bed post, and he clutched it tight. He squeezed it so tight it hurt, but it was a dull, safe pain, compared to the jabbing, pulsing pain that sent shock through his body. He concentrated on the dull pain until he could turn his attention back to his left hand. 

He pulled his wand out of his pocket, and pointed it at his wrist.

The tip was trembling because of the shuddering breaths he was pulling in through clenched teeth. 

After every beating he only dared to heal the most critical injuries, like broken bones. If he healed the bruises as well he would only get more frequent and longer beatings.

“ _Episkey,”_ he whispered. The bone in his finger snapped back with a crunching noise. The pain was terrible, Peter curled up and rolled onto the bed, as if that would somehow make it better.

The finger was straight, but there was a weird bump on the bone now, Peter didn’t think he had managed that spell quite right.

He took a deep breath, blinked the tears out of his eyes and repeated the spell on his wrist.

He wanted to scream so badly, it would make everything better if he could just scream and let the pain out in some way.

He didn’t scream, he gritted his teeth and stared at the half-moon out the window and prayed to some unknown deity that summer would be over soon.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered to himself. “It’s going to be okay.”

Lie.

 

Peter said goodbye to his father as soon as he got out of the car and had his trunk out of the back. His father drove away without a second glance. 

The injuries made everything much more difficult, but he made it onto the platform in good time and carried his stuff up onto the train.

James met him in the hallway. “Hey, Wormtail,” he greeted with a smile. “How are you? Good summer?”

“I’m good, it was good,” the lies had become automatic. 

James clapped his hand on Peter’s shoulder. 

That _hurt._  

Peter tried not to move, but he couldn’t help the way his body automatically moved away and the little gasp of pain that hissed through his teeth.

James looked at him oddly, but didn’t comment.

“Guess what?” James said, turning slightly to let Peter see the badge that was pinned to his chest. “I’m Quidditch Captain!”

“Congratulations,” Peter said.

“Thanks, I’d totally forgotten that Esmerelda had left, actually, so it was a complete surprise.”

“Where’s Sirius?” Peter asked, looking behind James.

“Oh, he already went to go get a compartment, we should go find him, I expect.”

They made their way down the train, finding Sirius sitting in a compartment with Remus across from him. 

“Remus!” James shouted, “I’m Quidditch Captain!”

Remus winced at the loud noise and responded, “I know, Sirius was telling me.”

James shot Sirius a dirty look and opened his mouth to comment, but he was cut off.

“Wormtail!” Sirius said, “How was your summer?”

“It was fine.” Lie. He purposely did not give a longer answer than that.

He tried to lift his trunk up onto the rack above, but his muscles were protesting against any movement at all, let alone lifting a heavy trunk.

James grabbed the other end of it and helped him lift it up.

“Thanks,” Peter said, a little breathless from the pain.

“No problem.”

James spun dramatically and clapped his hands together. “Right, down to business.”

“Here he goes,” Sirius said to Lupin.

“You warned me,” Remus said.

“I did.”

“What?” James asked. “Are you saying that I am too eager to wreak havoc on the students who should be studying, are you saying that you want a peaceful year? Are you saying that we should not plan any pranks at all?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Yes, that is what we’re saying.”

Sirius laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Moony. Of course we’re going to pull pranks. We’re just saying that we have other things to focus on for this train ride.”

“Like what?” Peter asked.

James looked as perplexed as he did, so at least Peter wasn’t totally lost.

Remus sighed dramatically. “Consider this a gift, to all of you, from me.” He reached into his pocket.

James was starting to look excited.

Peter watched as Remus handed a piece of parchment over to James. It looked completely normal, although it did have a lot of folds.

James took it delicately, holding it like it might disintegrate in his hands.

“You don’t have to be so careful,” Remus laughed. “I cast a bunch of spells on it, do it’s practically indestructible.”

“How does it work?” Peter asked, leaning forward to get a look at it.

“Take out your wand and say, ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.’”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Three Jinxes lyrics?” he asked, amused.

“It is their best song,” Remus answered. “When you’re done just say, ‘Mischief Managed’ and then everything will disappear and it’ll look like a normal piece of parchment again.”

James pulled his wand out and tapped the invisible map. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he pronounced.

Ink began to furl out from the center. The corridors and offices and common rooms and classrooms all took shape on the page. The ground and the secret passageways- all seven, were clearly depicted as well. 

“Look, there’s McGonagall,” Sirius muttered, pointing at her office.

“And Dumbledore’s strolling the grounds,” Peter said.

James looked up, his eyes shining. “This is brilliant,” he proclaimed. “Does it work on animagus? And people in invisibility cloaks?”

“I’m not sure,” Remus admitted, “we’ll have to do tests.”

The rest of the ride was spent on the construction of the map, and how it might be improved in small ways. 

They changed into their robes as the sun set. Peter did his best to hide the bruising that he had incurred, he thought he was successful, but James caught his eye afterwards, and he did not seem happy.

Contrary to popular belief, James was, in fact, incredibly smart, and he was probably piecing the clues together already.

The train slowed to a stop, and they all spilled out into the corridor. 

Peter followed the back of James’s robe and they stepped out onto the platform. 

The familiar form of Hagrid was looming over everyone, shouting, “Firs’ years, firs’ years o’er here.”

Peter stopped moving abruptly when James pivoted to face him. “Hmmm, I think we lost Padfoot and Moony,” he said.

Peter looked around, and discovered that he was right. 

“No matter,” James said brightly, grabbing his arm and pulling him along to the horseless carriages.

James climbed into the next one, pulling Peter along behind him. “Sorry, this carriage is full,” he told the third years waiting to climb in, and then lurched back in his seat, facing Peter as the carriage started to roll.

“I hear we have a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher,” Peter tried.

James just stared at him.

“What?” Peter asked innocently. 

“What the hell is going on?” James sounded harsh.

“Er- we’re going up to the castle for the start of the term feast?” Peter was trying desperately to avoid this conversation, but it wasn’t going to go too well.

“You’re injured.” James said.

“My dad and I were fixing up the house, and it was just an accident.” Lie. 

“Oh, really, what happened exactly?” James asked.

Peter resisted the urge to look at his feet, that would be a tell. “I fell off of a ladder, bruised my shoulder.” Lie.

“Which one?”

“My left.” Half-truth.

“Really? Because you flinched when I touched your right shoulder earlier in the train today.”

“Right,” Peter said, “My right, your left.”

“Your other shoulder is bruised, I saw when we were changing. And you use your left hand strangely now, did you injure your arm as well?”

“It was a bad fall,” Peter said weakly.

“Wormtail,” James rubbed his fingers across his forehead and tried again, “Peter, you know you can tell me what is going on. I know you didn’t fall off of a ladder.”

“Nothing is going on.” 

Lie.

James just looked at him hopelessly. 

“You’ve been lying for a really long time,” James said. “I didn’t just research for this map this summer. I realized that you don’t ever say anything about your family, so I decided to look them up.”

“You researched me?” Peter squeaked.

“Janet Pettigrew died in your first year of Hogwarts, leaving behind a greiving husband and son,” he recited. “You never told us that, in fact, you told us that she was still alive just this summer, at the club.”

Peter had never hated James’s perfect memory more.

“I didn’t want you to pity me.”

“Pity you?” James said disbelievingly. “We could have helped you. We could have been your friends, if you had just let us.”

The carriage rolled to a stop. Peter jumped out as fast as he could. He started to climb the steps to the double doors.

James came up behind him. “We’re going to go the Hospital Wing first,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” James pulled on his arm. “You are injured, full moon is in one week, and none of us have ever shifted with injuries before, and it’s probably not a good idea to find out what happens. Especially since we can’t actually tell anyone that we are animagus.”

“All my injuries are superficial, there’s no reason to panic, I’ve done it before,” Peter’s eyes darted around, making sure no one was hearing this conversation.

“Can you rotate your left hand in a circle?” James asked.

Peter tried, but it stopped halfway through, he must have done something wrong when he healed it.

James pulled him over to the side of the Great Hall and pulled the map out of his pocket. He scanned it quickly to find Madame Pomfrey sitting at the teachers table.

“I’m going to go get Madame Pomfrey, you _stay here._ ” James said, narrowing his eyes at Peter to make sure he understood. 

Peter nodded and then stood there, watching as floods of students walked passed.

Sirius and Remus passed by. Peter watched as Remus hurried to Astrid McDougal’s side, and put an arm around her.

Sirius was chatting with Mary and Lily, they all disappear into the Great Hall.

James comes out a minute later, Madame Pomfrey trailing behind him. 

“Okay, dear, what’s injured?” She asked.

Peter sighed. “My wrist won’t move well, I think I might have sprained it or broken it this summer, I tried to heal it myself, but it didn’t work out very well. And my shoulders are bruised.”

“All of your injuries,” James said.

Peter glared at him. “Those are all of my injuries.”

James sighed, and he looked tired. “Stop lying.” He put his hand up and rubbed his forehead. “It’s not wrong to ask for help.”

Peter sighed. 

“Come on, dear, let’s move into a classroom,” Madame Pomfrey led the two of them into a room just off of the entryway. “Sit on the desk,” she told Peter.

She pulled her wand out and eyed his wrist. She felt the bones with her fingers.

“This is going to hurt,” she told him.

Peter nodded and took a breath. 

She pointed her wand at his wrist and muttered a spell that he had never heard before.

A _crack_ resounded through the room as his bones snapped back into place. James jumped at the noise.

Peter hissed air in through his teeth, riding out the aftershocks of the pain. Then it was gone, and he relaxed.

Madame Pomfrey looked at him strangely. “Most people scream when I do that.” Then she became business like again and said, “Remove your robes and your shirt please, I need to heal your bruising.”

Peter did as she asked, dreading the moment when he would have to reveal his skin. 

He pulled his shirt off, and he could hear Madame Pomfrey _tut tut-_ ing and James hiss.

His shoulders were a nice green color, the left one looked more yellow that the other. 

But there was a nice black bruise that was spreading across his left side, right across his ribs. It hadn’t even finished forming yet.

James sat down on one of the desks, looking faintly sick. 

Madame Pomfrey started to mutter various incantations while pointing her wand at his skin.

“Your rib is cracked,” she said.

“What?” Peter turned to look at her.

“Right here,” she pressed her fingertip to his left side gently. “This is going to hurt more than the wrist,” she warned.

“I’m ready,” he promised.

There was no loud crack this time, but Peter did stiffen in pain, groaning a little bit, as the pain flared and then faded.

“Okay, you should be done, unless you have any more injuries?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

He shook his head. Truth.

“Wormtail,” James said in a warning voice.

“I don’t, I swear,” Peter said as he pulled his shirt back on. “Could you not say anything about this?” he asked Madame Pomfrey.

She pursed her lips. “I should probably tell someone,” she said, “I think you need help.”

He shook his head, “I’m fine. Please don’t say anything.”

She shook her head. “I can’t promise that.”

Peter sighed, looking to James for help.

James raised his hands. “Don’t look at me, I think she’s right.”

Madame Pomfrey sighed, “Come see me if anything feels wrong, or if you discover you’ve healed something else wrong.”

Peter nodded, and she swept out of the room, heading back to the feast.

The room was silent for a couple of moments.

“How long has this been going on?” James asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” James glared at him. 

Peter shuts his mouth, surprised at the emotion behind the one syllable. “Ever since my mum died,” he said quietly.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” 

Peter didn’t answer, just looked down at his feet. He slid off the desk and pulled his robe on slowly.

He passed James on the way out the door. 

He walked into the Great Hall with his head ducked and made his way to where Sirius and Remus were sitting quickly.

James followed behind him, scowling.

“Where were you guys?” Remus asked.

“Testing the map,” Peter lied, “just making sure it shows where everyone is.”

“You doubt me?” Remus asked acting offended.

“What did we miss?” James asked, pulling the mashed potatoes near and piling some onto his plate.

“The sorting, it was as exciting as it usually is,” Sirius said with a sarcastic tone.

“I like the sorting,” Peter said.

“I do too,” Remus said. “And the hat had some interesting advice, it said we should trust each other.”

“Why did it say that?” James asked with his mouth full.

“Well, I expect because You-Know-Who is gaining more power,” Sirius said, “You know who he is don’t you?” 

James sneered at him in response. “Very funny.”

The rest of the feast was spent like that, in friendly banter with random interspersings of serious conversation. 

Peter ate happily, periodically rotating his wrist, and trying to pretend like James wasn’t watching him closely. 

When the plates all cleared, leaving behind unobscured gleaming gold everyone stood up to walk to the common rooms. 

“Hey, Remus, what’s the password?” James asked.

“ _Hungarian Horntail_ ,” Remus answered distractedly as he tried to round up all the first years with Lily.

“Good luck, mate,” Sirius said, looking at all the first years who looked scared out of their mind. 

The three of them made their way up to the common room, where the fire was crackling merrily and the red armchairs looked inviting. 

But the four poster beds up above sounded even more inviting. Peter climbed up the stairs and dressed into his pajamas, and collapsed into his bed, falling asleep instantly.


	7. Fyre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am American, and I don't have a Britpicker. So I apologize for any mistakes that I have made previously and any that I make from now on.

Transfiguration had never been James’s favorite subject. Actually, it was one of his least favorite subjects, but he needed it if he was going to become an Auror, which was his practical career choice, because his parents insisted that he have a practical career choice. He didn’t really understand the point of this, there were several careers that he would rather have before becoming an Auror.

For example, he wanted to be a professional Quidditch player, and there was no reason that couldn’t happen. Also, it would be nice to help make the chocolates for Honeydukes, if only so he could eat the chocolate that he made.

But no matter how many careers he would rather have than a practical one, he still had to take Transfiguration, because 1) it made his parents happy and 2) he admitted to himself that it might actually come in handy if he ever fought Death Eaters again.

Remus was the only other one of their friends that was taking Transfiguration with him, Wormtail didn’t do as well as he should have on his practical O.W.L. and Sirius had pronounced the class as a waste of time.

At the very last minute before class started the door burst open and Lily ran in, sliding into the seat next to James. 

It was the only free seat in the classroom, when he looked around, which dimmed the pleasure he had felt when she had sat down next to him.

Professor McGonagall stood up at the front of the class.

“If you are here, you have clearly scored at least an Exceeds Expectations on your O.W.L.s, that does not mean that this class will be easy. This will be the hardest Transfiguration that you have ever attempted in your school career.”

James tuned out, he hated it when teachers said things like that at the beginning of the year. It was like they were trying to depress you early on so that you would feel no hope for the rest of the term.

He started to doodle on his parchment. He started a big loopy cursive L before realizing what he was drawing.

Remus kicked him under the desk, and James scribbled it out quickly, sending a furtive glance at Lily.

She was listening to Professor McGonagall with rapt attention.

James tuned in at the very end, to hear that they were supposed to be transfiguring ravens into candles. 

That didn’t sound much harder than normal.

He pulled his wand out, and leveled it at the raven and said the spell. A breeze ruffled over the raven, and it ruffled it’s feathers, but didn’t transform.

James frowned and looked to his sides. To his left, Remus was concentrating rather hard, and Lily was muttering the incantation under breath over and over. 

James watched as Lily’s raven stiffened and narrowed, growing taller, and turning white. 

She burst into a brilliant smile. 

“Nicely done Miss Evans,” McGonagall said as she passed by. “Perhaps you could help Mr. Potter,” she said, eyeing his raven with pursed lips.

James frowned, but he was secretly thanking McGonagall.

“So, how was your summer?” James asked, and then tried to transform his raven again. It didn’t work.

“It was good, how was yours?” 

“Good, normal,” James grinned at her.

She grabbed his hand, leveling his wand at the bird. “No, don’t swish and flick. Just point straight.”

She let go of his hand abruptly, as if she had just realized what she had done. James’s skin was tingling.

He stuttered the spell out again.

The raven squawked indignantly at him and turned away.

He sighed. 

“Look,” Lily started, “umm, I know I was quite rude to you before, at the club and at the end of the year last term, and, I mean, you deserved it, but-”

James raised an eyebrow at her. 

“You did! You were being a jerk,” she defended herself.

“Is this going anywhere?” James asked.

“Thank you,” Lily said in a rush. “For saving my life when that Death Eater was taking me away.”

“You’re welcome,” James said, feeling a warm feeling spread out from his chest. 

“Aha!” A cry of triumph came from James’s left and he turned to see Remus’s candle. 

James sighed, concentrating hard and muttering the incantation again. 

He watched as his raven transformed into a candle, he turned and smiled triumphantly at Lily.

“Well done,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said. 

She turned away, to listen to McGonagall again, as she had started talking again. James stared at her until Remus kicked him underneath the table again.

McGonagall thankfully ended her speech after several minutes and released them all.

The next class on the agenda was Defense Against the Dark Arts. The classroom had been moved from the dungeons to the third floor, and so that was where Remus and James walked to next.

Wormtail and Sirius met them outside the door. 

“So, new teacher,” Sirius said.

Mary came to join their conversation, bringing with her Lily. James felt pleased, even though he had no right to be. He had a momentary thought that this crush was getting out of hand before Mary began to speak.

“Yeah, Professor Fenwick? I hear he’s a Auror, or at least he was before he took this job.”

“He’s a member of the Order,” James said, thinking back to a conversation his parents had had.

“What’s the Order?” Lily asked.

Living in a muggle household, she wouldn’t have heard about it over the summer. James explained it to her as best he could. “It’s this group of people who are trying to defeat You-Know-Who.”

Lily looked up at him. “You don’t say his name?” 

James frowned, thinking about it. “No,” he said eventually.

Lily pursed her lips together and looked down.

“Well, I heard from Astrid that he’s a really good teacher,” Remus said, shifting his books into his other arm. “She had him this morning.”

“Oh, you heard from Astrid did you?” Sirius asked him with his eyebrows raised. 

“Shut up,” Remus muttered, the tips of his ears turning slightly pink.

“Well, I hope he’s a good teacher, otherwise we’re going to have a hard time defeating Voldemort,” James said, jumping back into the conversation to save Remus. A chill went down his spine at saying the name. 

Wormtail was looking at him fearfully, and Mary looked scandalized. 

“Oh, it’s only a name,” Lily said to her friend.

“It just gives me the shivers,” Mary muttered back to her.

Behind her the door to the classroom opened and the students closest, which consisted of three Hufflepuffs, shuffled inside.

The classroom itself was somewhat dreary. The curtains were closed, and it seemed like dust was filming the walls, and the edges of the desks. 

A man was sitting at the front of the classroom in dark blue robes. His hair was brown, and it stuck up in the front. But his most prominent feature was the scar that ran across his cheek, from his ear down to the middle of his chin, narrowly missing his mouth.

He stood up, pointing his wand at the blackboard. The chalk levitated and wrote, _Nonverbal Spells_. 

“I am Professor Fenwick,” he said. His voice was somewhat high, and did not match his face. “I will be here for this year, at the end of which I will go back to my work as an Auror.” He did not say why he was taking a year off from catching Dark Wizards, and no one asked. “This year will be spent preparing for your N.E.W.T.s, which are coming sooner than you expect. The most important thing you can possibly learn this year is nonverbal spells, which is what we will be working on today. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t accomplish them today, it takes practice to execute a nonverbal spell successfully. Who can tell me what the advantage of a nonverbal spell is?”

The only three Ravenclaws in the room raised their hands, along with Mary and Remus. Looking around, James noticed that there weren’t any Slytherins in the class.

“Yes,” Professor Fenwick pointed to one of the Ravenclaws, “what is your name?”

“Caradoc Dearborn, sir,” the boy responded, “the advantage of a nonverbal spell is that the enemy you are fighting does not know when you will attack, because you do not need to preface it by speaking and because they will not know what spell is being cast on them.”

“Perfect,” Fenwick said, “ten points to Ravenclaw.” He wandered back to the desk at the front of the room. He slumped against it, crossing his arms across his chest. “The Dark Arts are forever changing,” he said in a low voice. “They are an art to most Death Eaters and to Voldemort himself. They love to see the effects of the Cruciatus curse on various people. They love to see the people who can throw off an Imperius curse.”

James curled his hands into fists, trying to shake off the memory of the excruciating pain he had experienced at the end of last term.

Lily was looking down at her desk, with her lips pressed into a line.

“In order to fight them, you will have to be quick, and possess an extraordinary amount of luck. If you join in the fight against Voldemort when you come to age, then some of you will die.”

There was ringing silence in the classroom.

“I’m here to try to prevent that.”

Fenwick fell silent. No one moved an inch.

Fenwick stood up straight and looked at his audience. They were staring at him with wide eyes. 

“Pair up and try to jinx each other silently.”

There was the sound of chairs being pushed back and whispers as people paired up. 

Sirius and James stood opposite each other, pointing their wands at each other but no spell emerging. 

Sirius frowned, letting out a huge breath that he had been holding. 

Sirius got a wicked grin on his face and whispered under his breath, “ _Calvorio_.”

James leapt out of the way of the spell, because he couldn’t cast a good shield charm out loud, so how could he do it nonverbally?

James narrowed his eyes and pointed his wand at Sirius. He was quite angry, first because Sirius had cheated, and second because the spell he had cheated with was supposed to make him loose all his hair. And James liked his hair.

He thought _Levicorpus_ as hard as he could, willing the spell into existence.

Sirius was pulled into the air by his ankle. 

James laughed, the loudest sound in the classroom. He was vaguely aware that everyone had lowered their wands in order to watch the duel that was now happening, and that Lily was laughing behind him.

Sirius managed to cast a spell in his general direction without saying a word. His aim was slightly off, on account of hanging upside down in the air, and the spell was heading directly towards Lily.

James’s resultant shield charm wasn’t exactly strong, but he’d managed to cast it without any sound, so he was proud of it anyway.

Sirius cast another spell lightening quick, which causes yellow flowers to burst out of the top of James’s head. ( _Herbifors_ James’s brain noted distractedly.) A couple people clapped.

_Cantis_ , James thought fiercely.

“ _The statistical probability of loving a witch is so minor that when it happens there’s nothing finer than anything in the world._ ” Sirius sang loudly, as he looked around confusedly.

The class behind surrounding them laughed.

“All right, all right,” Professor Fenwick came between them and pointed his want at Sirius first, muttering, “ _Finite_ ,” which made Sirius come crashing to the floor, and he stopped singing.

“Encore, Encore,” a someone shouted.

Sirius bowed to them.

Fenwick cast the same spell on James, so that the yellow flowers on his head disappeared.

“Well done,” Fenwick said, looking vaguely impressed at the two of them. “Twenty points to Gryffindor, and five more for your excellent singing voice, Sirius.”

“It was my pleasure,” Sirius said grinning.

“The rest of you, practice nonverbal spells, and have a good lunch.”

They all filed out of the classroom.

“That was quite impressive,” Remus said, “and nice job on the shield charm, James.”

“Thank you,” James said with a wide grin. 

“Isn’t it interesting,” Sirius started, “how the only two times he’s actually been able to produce a working shield charm is when Li-”

“ _Silencio!_ ” James said hastily, as Lily and Mary walked passed them.

Sirius opened and closed his mouth mutely like a fish out of water.

“Would you keep your voice down?” James muttered. 

Remus took out his wand and released Sirius from the spell. 

“Goodness, I was only saying,” Sirius complained, rubbing his throat as if making sure that it worked.

“Well, you don’t like it when he mentions Mary,” Wormtail muttered.

Sirius turned to look at him with an eyebrow raised. “True,” he allowed after a moment’s thought.

“Truce?” James asked with his eyebrows raised.

“Truce.” Sirius agreed.

 

James opened up the map and pointed his wand at it. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” The ink unfurled from the page and James opened it up. “So I’m thinking that we need a name,” he said.

“A name?” Sirius asked from his bed.

“Yeah, our group,” James said waving his arm to indicate the four of them. “Actually I already have an idea.”

“What is it?” Wormtail asked, looking up from his Potions book.

“So, last year in History of Magic Professor Bins taught us about the Marauders.”

“Wait, you paid attention in History of Magic?” Sirius asked.

“No, he didn’t, he used my notes,” Remus said with an irritated voice. “Actually you all did.”

“Anyway, the Marauders basically ran around England in the 1600’s and terrorized the Ministry for fun. And we basically do the same thing, so I thought we could call ourselves the Marauders, and the map could be the Marauder’s Map.”

“I like it,” Sirius said.

“Me too,” Wormtail said.

“Works for me,” Remus said. 

“Great,” James said, beaming, “now can one of you shift? I need to see if it works.”

“I nominate Wormtail because I don’t want to get out of bed,” Sirius sang.

Wormtail sighed and shifted.

James looked at the Gryffindor dormitories. The name Peter Pettigrew was nowhere to be seen.

“Looks like we have some kinks to work out,” James sighed.

Remus rolled off of his bed, leaving his Transfuguration textbook behind. “Let me see,” James handed the map to him, and he brought it up to his face to examine it.

“Try your cloak,” he told James.

Wormtail shifted back, reappearing on his bed looking a bit dazed. 

James went to his trunk and dug around inside of it, pulling out the silvery cloak. He threw it over himself, making him disappear from the world.

“I can still see your name,” Remus said.

James pulled the cloak off, reappearing. 

“So we just need to figure out the animagus problem. Which means that we can’t exactly use this yet, because McGonagall might catch us.”

Remus made a dissatisfied noise and padded back to his bed, taking the map with him. He pulled his wand off of the bedside table and began to mutter incantations while regarding the piece of parchment with curious eyes.

James flopped onto his bed, sighing.

He was still tired from Quidditch tryouts that had taken place that morning. They had been a disaster. He had his team set up, but he wished he had a better team. It seemed like they wouldn’t work well together from what he’s seen on the pitch this afternoon.

Quimbley, who was still the keeper due to the total lack of skill in the rest of the nominees, started shouting at Michael Sharra, who was a Chaser. They’d almost started jinxing each other in mid-air. 

Mary was probably the only person that James could honestly say he was proud to have on the team. She was a Seeker; James didn’t know where she’d been hiding her talent, but it was a shame that she hadn’t tried out a couple of years earlier.

His thoughts drifted from Mary to Lily to the Hogsmeade attack.

“So I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“Oh no.”

“This can’t be good.”

“Here we go.”

James sat up. “Thank you for your overwhelming faith,” he said coldly. “I was thinking about the Hogsmeade attack, and how a lot of students only survived that by luck.”

Remus lowered his wand, and started to listen with an interested expression.

“And You-Know- Who isn’t going anywhere,” James continued. “Eventually we’re going to be the ones that will have to fight him, and we might die.” James swallowed, staring resolutely at the wall. “And I just think we should be prepared.”

“What do you mean?” Remus asked. “Are you talking about practicing dueling? Or joining the Order? Or what?”

James shrugged. “Both? I was just more concentrated on the dueling part actually. Like, I should actually learn how to do a proper shield charm, I was thinking that we could use some more hexes and jinxes. Just in case.” James’s voice trailed off.

“What you’re suggesting sounds suspiciously like school work.” Sirius said in a smooth voice.

“It sounds smart,” Wormtail said from his bed, surprisingly forceful. “If Death Eaters ever come back to Hogwarts I want to be able to defend myself.

James stared at him, wondering if it was just Death Eaters he wanted to defend himself from.

“How would we go about doing this?” Remus asked. “We don’t exactly have a teacher.”

James shrugged. “I was thinking we would teach ourselves, it can’t be too hard.”

“I’m in.” Wormtail said.

“It sounds much too like schoolwork,” Sirius dismissed the thought with a sneer. 

“I’ll do it,” Remus said. “When are we starting?”

“I was thinking that we should do it on Monday afternoons, we all have free periods then.”

Remus nodded, looking back to the map. “Wormtail can you change again?”

Wormtail sighed and then shrank into a rat.

“Aha!” Remus exclaimed, handing the map to James. 

Peter Pettigrew was written next to a pair of footprints in the dormitory.

“Nicely done,” James complimented him with a smile.

“Look at the front,” Remus said.

James folded the map up to find _The Marauders Map_ in loopy letters on the front. He grinned. “It’s brilliant.”

 

“Focus James,” Remus chided him.

“I am focusing,” James said through clenched teeth. 

He was gripping his wand so tightly that his knuckles were white. _Protego_ , he thought. 

Nothing happened.

“You have to want it to happen.”

James cast him a murderous glance, and Remus shut his mouth rather abruptly.

Sirius was sitting on a desk in the mostly empty classroom, twirling his wand around in his fingers.

Wormtail was studying a text book in the corner, and muttering incantations under his breath.

“Prongs, you look like you’re having a seizure,” Sirius said.

“Shut up,” James spat.

“It’s okay, you’re going to get it,” Remus said.

“Would everyone just be quiet for a moment?” James shouted. 

Remus shut his mouth with an audible click and Sirius looked taken aback at the shouting. Wormtail just glanced up once and then went back to his textbook.

The door opened.

Mary poked her head in. 

“It’s James, Sirius, Remus and Peter,” she said to someone behind her.

A girl with red hair poked her head in.

James frowned. 

“Hello Mary,” Sirius said smoothly.

“What are you guys doing in here?” Mary asked, stepping inside fully and opening the door wider to reveal Lily.

“Practicing magic,” Remus said, hitting his wand against his leg.

“Well, attempting to,” Sirius said with a smirk in James’s direction.

James gripped his wand tightly enough that red sparks flew out of it. Lily looked at him curiously.

“The idea is preparing to join the Order someday,” James said.

Mary’s face brightened and she and Lily exchanged excited looks. “Would it be intruding to ask if we could join you?” Mary asked.

“No,” Sirius said quickly. “No, of course not.”

Mary smiled at him. Lily looked distinctly less pleased. Probably dreading the prospect of spending more time with him, James thought bitterly.

“What are you working on today?” Mary asked.

“Nonverbal shield charm. James can literally do every other spell nonverbally, except for the shield charm.” Sirius leaned in towards Mary.

Remus turned away from the pair of them rolling his eyes at James. “Okay,” he said. “Try again.”

James raised his wand and concentrated as hard as he could. He was sure that his face was turning purple. 

Nothing happened.

Lily moved over to the corner where Wormtail was, starting up a conversation with him. He seemed startled to be receiving attention from her.

“Hey James,” Sirius said, looking up from his conversation.

“What?”

Sirius pointed his wand towards Lily, letting a stream of red light shoot towards her. James took a step to the right and thought _Protego!_

The spell bounced off of the shield.

“I hate you,” James said, slashing his wand through the air and sending a jinx towards Sirius.

He didn’t block it in time, and he fell over, his legs stuck together.

He was laughing.

“You don’t hate me,” Sirius said.

“No, I really really do,” James said, pointing his wand down at him.

James felt a spell hit him in the back, and his wand went flying out of his hand. He turned around to see Remus calmly relieving Sirius of his wand as well.

“Dueling is next week,” he said, holding all three wands in his hand.

“Remus,” Sirius said, gesturing towards his legs.

“ _Finite._ ”

Sirius’s legs sprang apart and he scrambled to his feet. “Thank you,” he said.

Remus handed both of their wands back with stern warnings about dueling, which they pretended to listen to.

“You know,” Lily said from where she was still sitting with Wormtail. “I think some other people would be interested in joining this group too, and it would be good to have more people who were better at different subjects, right?” 

“Yeah, I suppose,” James said trying to act nonchalant.

“I’ll ask around, if that’s okay with you guys, it’s your club,” Lily said, looking at the boys in the room.

They all shrugged, assenting.

In the next few days it seemed like Lily talked to everyone. Every meal she was flitting in between the house tables, and every class she was talking to as many students as she could.

“I think this is going to work,” she told James in Transfiguration. “I mean, I know it’s just a study group, but it feels exciting, doing something that might help defeat Voldemort.”

James tried not to flinch at the name.

“I think we should have a name too, something that plays off of the Order of the Phoenix, so something to do with fire or ashes you know? Because the Phoenix rises from the ashes, and we’re going to be joining the Order someday.”

“I like Fire,” James said. “But we should spell it with a Y. Fyre. ‘Are you coming to Fyre tonight?’ ‘I can’t, I’m going to Fyre.’” James nodded, as he talked.

“I like it,” Lily said decisively.

James had to admit, a nice side effect of Fyre was that he and Lily were talking a lot more.

James had Quidditch Practice at least twice a week, and he was trying to have it three times a week, which meant that Lily mostly organized Fyre. Not that there was much to organize, just getting a classroom and telling people where it was.

But everyone seemed to know that it was originally James’s club, so they came to him with as many questions as her. 

This was how the school seemed to link Lily and James together in their minds. It took exactly two days for rumours to start to float around.

James walked into the Great Hall after Quidditch practice, his hair still windswept. He was tired.

He was tired of trying to keep on top of the school work that was being thrown to him, he was tired of trying to get a decent Quidditch team together, he was tired of trying to teach everyone else how to cast nonverbal spells every Monday night.

Apparently he had a rare gift for it, something that Professor Fenwick had noticed and complimented him on.

He slid into a seat next to Lily.

“Have you noticed that everyone regards us as the mother and father of Fyre?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said, passing him the potatoes without him even asking.

He had to admit, the fact that she knew that about him made him feel like he had swallowed some Felix Felicis. 

“There are rumors about us going around too,” Lily said, pulling rolls near her and grabbing one. 

“Like what?” he asked, even though he knew full well what was being said.

“They think we’re dating.”

“Humph,” James managed through a mouthful.

Lily watched him with a flat stare. “Why are you so disgusting?” she asked. But she said it half to the sky, so he assumed it was a rhetorical question.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

“Want to what?” 

“Date,” James managed to get out through a dry throat. 

Lily sighed. “No.”

“Oh, right.” James dug back into his plate.

She watched him sad eyes. “James...”

“It’s fine.”

“It would never work,” she said. “It just wouldn’t, I’m sorry.”

James sighed, running a hand down his face. “Lily, it would work if you tried. It would work if we wanted it to.”

She shook her head, “I’m sorry, but it _can’t._ ” 

“Okay, if that’s the best excuse you’ve got,” James said.

“It’s not an excuse-”

“I’m not hungry,” James said abruptly and got up and walked out of the Great Hall. 

He didn’t even go up to the dormitories, he just walked back out onto the grounds and went to the edge of the forest and shifted into a Stag. Then he ran and ran and ran and ran and ran.


	8. An Awful lot of Bets

“Agh!” Golden sparks shot out of the end of Astrid’s wand. 

No one even turned around to look at her, screams of frustration weren’t actually that uncommon at Fyre. 

Remus laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, not wanting to be comforted. 

“Why can’t I do this?” she asked.

“Astrid, you’re a fourth year, the fact that you can to nonverbal spells at all is astonishing.”

She scowled. “Don’t talk down to me because I’m a fourth year.”

Remus blinked. “I wasn’t, I was complimenting you.”

She waved her wand, but no spell came out of the end of it. She stomped her foot, pushing back her sleeves. Remus stared at her arm that had scars that pulled at her skin. He had to stop himself from reaching out to trace them with his fingers.

She noticed him staring, and he blushed.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s practice something else.”

“Like what?” Remus asked. 

“I don’t know, anything.”

“How about a Patronus Charm?” Remus asked her and studied her facial expression to judge her reaction.

“Fine,” she said, closing her eyes and letting her skin smooth out with concentration. A faint smile came over her face and she whispered, “ _Expecto Patronum._ ” A faint wisp of silver came out of the end of her wand.

“Nicely done,” Remus said, looking faintly impressed.

“I didn’t even do it,” Astrid said, annoyed.

Remus sighed, closing his eyes to compose himself.

He felt Astrid lean against him, could feel her softly press against him and her hand slip into his. She leaned her forehead against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m just irritable because of the full moon tonight, and it must be so much worse for you, I’m so sorry.”

Remus sighed and slid his fingers through her blond hair, which always helped her to relax.

It was October, which meant that they’d been together for almost four months, and they still had almost no idea how to handle each other on bad days.

“Come on,” Astrid whispered. “Let’s go.”

She pulled on his hand and they left the classroom, and she led him down the stairs and out onto the grounds, where the sun was just turning the sky purple.

Astrid pulled him into the first Greenhouse. “This is where I come when I’m having a bad day.”

She walked through the plants, reaching out to touch some of them, greeting them like friends.

“I always go to this corner in the library,” Remus said, knowing he sounded like such a Prefect, but he didn’t care.

“I’ve seen you in there,” Astrid said, pulling herself onto one of the work tables. She sat with her legs dangling off of the side.

Remus raised an eyebrow at her. “You mean you noticed me before the end of last year?” He asked.

She blushed. “Yeah. But you were always just some guy that was two years older than me, and who would never even look at me twice.”

Remus walked over to stand in front of her. 

Suddenly she couldn’t seem to look him in the eyes. He slid his fingertips over her hands and up her arms, which made her shiver.

He laughed a little bit, “I can’t stop looking at you,” he said. And it was true. He spent so much time looking for her and looking at her that he was almost surprised he hadn’t tired of it yet.

She leaned in towards him and kissed him.

It was the third time they had kissed, precisely. The first time Remus had stopped her mid-sentence because he just couldn’t take it anymore. She was standing there, talking about classes and her blond hair was swept up in a ponytail and her lips had been especially pink that day, and he just had to kiss her.

The second time was about a week later, when they were sitting on the grass studying, and she was laughing at her own joke, her hazel eyes sparkling and he kissed her.

And then there was this time, the third time where she kissed him. He stepped closer, so that he was in between her knees.

One hand was resting on his shoulder, and one of her hands was at the base of his neck, which just made him want her. 

Her lips were soft and warm and he leaned into her as he pulled her waist closer. With her sitting on the table, they were the same height, which made everything convenient. 

She leaned back, smiling softly. 

Remus smiled back, sliding his arms around her waist so that he could hold her. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and Remus’s fingers pressed a little harder against her hips.

“We’re going to make this work right?” Astrid asked.

“Of course,” Remus said. He meant it too, but it occurred to him that it was probably not the best time to make promises while his brain was still stuck on the feeling of her legs wrapped around his waist.

He felt it start to change.

He stepped back from her, holding his arms out in front of her. He had no idea how he could have been so colossally stupid.

“Shit,” Remus said forcefully, which made Astrid look up alarmed. He never cursed.

“Come on,” he said, running to the door, “we’ve got to go.”

Astrid was staring at his face, which he was sure was already starting to change. He pushed her out the door and towards the castle. 

“Go,” he said. He started to run towards the Whomping Willow, he could still make it into the tunnel in time. It was possible.

Astrid was running towards the castle, Remus could see her out of the corner of his eye. But she looked up as she was running, which was a mistake.

The moon captured her eyes and she slowed to a stop, staring.

Remus collapsed onto the ground, the change taking full effect now. The robes he was wearing ripped and his bones ground together. 

He was aware that he was whimpering, but he couldn’t stop, the pain of changing into a werewolf was something that could never be dulled, no matter how many times he went through it.

Moony stood up on all fours. He shook himself, reminding himself how this body moved.

A scent was in the air, he inhaled deeply. A sweet, meaty smell. He turned towards it. 

The animal in his brain took over, and he started to stalk towards the human, who was staring at the sky. 

She smelled delicious.

He growled in anticipation.

It would feel so good to sink his teeth into that skin. He had never tasted a human before. His mouth watered at the mere thought.

She would scream, he was certain, and he would howl with her; their melodies intertwining. 

A thrumming sound came from his right, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He was close to her now, he could practically taste her, the scent was so strong.

Antlers hooked underneath his belly and flipped him over onto his back. He snarled and snapped at the stag that was blocking his path to the human girl. 

A dog was suddenly snapping at his throat, on the other side.

Moony scrambled to his feet, but the girl was being led away by another human. He howled at the moon in fury.

The stag and the dog drove him back towards the forest, until he lost the fever of the hunt, and he remembered a little bit about who he was.

Moony looked around at them, and then turned and ran into the trees.

 

Remus came back to himself suddenly. He stood up from where he was crouched on the floor. Padfoot was curled up in a corner, his head resting on his paws. Wormtail was scurrying around the edges of the room. 

Prongs changed back slowly, and helped Remus stand up. 

James walked out into the hall and came back with a spare set of clothes, which Remus pulled on quickly. 

“Is she okay?” Remus asked quickly. His voice boomed out in the quiet of the room.

James nodded. “She’s fine.”

Remus nodded jerkily. 

“Okay. Good,” he managed to force the words from his throat. He didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel okay.

“Remus,” James tried.

“No, please don’t.” Remus held up a hand to stop his words. “I don’t want to talk.” He walked past James and out into the hallway.

Remus bent in half to scurry along the passageway to the Whomping Willow. He was trying above all to not think about how he had started to hunt Astrid last night.

He was failing miserably. The thought of how she would taste filled his mind again, and he pushed it away.

He forced himself to think of other things. Like the way he always knew when she was around, it was like their bodies were already attuned to each other. Astrid had a habit of slipping her hand into his in greeting, and then she would lean against him, like she was too tired to support her own weight anymore. When she did that he always had an overwhelming urge to take her away from everyone else and just keep her to himself. 

Remus felt sick. He had almost killed her last night. He pulled himself out of the trapdoor at the base of the willow and then ran behind the greenhouses.

He pressed his hand against glass of the house and bent over. His stomach heaved and he threw up what little was in his stomach. 

He pulled out his wand, and took a deep breath so that his hand would steady. 

“ _Auguamenti,_ ” He whispered and directed the stream towards his mouth. He swilled the water around in his mouth and then spat it out onto the grass.

He walked up to the castle, dreading the conversation that was going to come next. 

He pulled the door open and crept inside. He padded over to the doorways so that he could peer inside at everyone having breakfast.

Remus saw her instantly, sitting on the end of the Hufflepuff table alone, staring down at the slab of undercooked meat that was in front of her.

She looked up immediately, her eyes unerringly finding his. She stood up and started towards him, a fast walk.

Remus didn’t take a step into the hall, preferring to stay out of sight. Astrid came up to him and slid her arms around his neck.

He blinked, surprised. He had expected something much more distant.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

He surprised himself by laughing. He didn’t even know he could laugh on a morning like this.

“Are _you_ okay?” he asked her.

She waved that question away. “I’m fine,” she said. 

Remus studied her face and then took her hand and twirled her under his arm so he could look at her.

He admitted to himself in a quiet painful moment that that was mostly an excuse to hold her hand and look at her one more time without too much guilt.

She was blushing delicately when she faced him again.

“We need to talk,” he mumbled, dropping her hand and looking down at his shoes.

“Okay,” she said. Her face fell slightly, but Remus wasn’t paying attention. He was mostly trying to convince himself that this was the right thing to do.

He jerked his head off in the direction of the dungeons.

They made their way down the stairs and then wound their way through the corridors until they found a dead end which was covered in dust and looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in a century.

Astrid leaned against the wall and watched as Remus started to pace.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so very sorry.” He looked at Astrid, and he felt exhausted and worn. He was so tired of his condition ruining everything.

“Remus-”

“No, don’t I have to say all of this right now or I never will.”

Astrid nodded.

“I’m sorry that I’m a Werewolf, even though I can’t do anything about it, and I’m sorry that you were put into danger because of that. And I’m sorry that this had to happen to us, and I wish it didn’t, but I think that the best thing for us is to just stop seeing each other, because I don’t want to hurt you and you shouldn’t have to deal with someone who has so many issues as I do.”

He looked at Astrid desperately.

She seemed to consider several different options before she started to respond. “Well, Remus, I like you very much and I’ve had a very good time with you, but I’m afraid you’re right, we should break up.”

Remus stepped back at the matter-of-fact tone to her voice. “Right,” he said. “Okay then.”

Astrid stepped away from the wall. “Now that that’s settled, will you be my boyfriend again?” 

She had a mischievous smile on her face as she said it.

“What?”

“You clearly needed to break up with me over this fiasco, so I let you, and now I’m asking for you back.” Astrid said it with an almost nervous look on her face. 

“Why?”

“Because I like you!” She stepped a little bit closer so that they were almost touching.

Remus knew where every inch of her body was. If he closed his eyes and she moved he would still know where every part of her was. 

“Do you honestly want to break up with me? Honestly?” Astrid asked him.

She didn’t look into his eyes as he thought about it. “No,” he managed eventually. “But that doesn’t mean that we should be together.”

“Yes it does,” she insisted.

“No it doesn’t!” He stepped away from her so he could think a little bit faster. “Astrid, it’s not fair to force this problem on you, it’s not fair to ask you to deal with it.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Remus, I don’t exactly come baggage free either,” she pulled her sleeve up to reveal her scars. “I’m in a unique position to understand at least part of what you go through, and you’re in a unique position to understand my problems.” She shrugged. “It’s like it was meant to be.”

She grinned winningly up at him. 

He groaned and ran his hands over his face like he was trying to wipe away the worry.

She stepped closer to him again, “Is that a yes?”

“Astrid, do have self-destructive tendencies? I’m honestly curious.”

“I think that’s a yes,” she half sang.

“Have you thought about this? Really actually thought about his? Because I don’t want you to break my heart in a week when you wake up and realize you’re dating a Werewolf.”

Her eyes lit up, “Do I have the power to break your heart?”

“Astrid, focus.”

“I thought about it,” she said seriously. “Didn’t even sleep last night.”

They paused, looking at each other. “We’re late for class,” Remus said finally.

He tried to step past her, but she blocked him. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said frowning.

Remus sighed heavily. He put his hands on her hips and pressed her against the wall. Her eyes were wide, staring at him as he fitted his mouth to hers. 

Her rib cage expanded with a breath, her body pushing against his. Remus pushed closer, kissing her slowly.

Her hands clutched at the hem of his shirt, and she made a helpless little noise in the back of her throat.

Remus could hardly admit to himself how much he liked that. 

He pulled back from her slightly, “Did that answer your question?” he asked.

She was breathing in little bursts, and she looked up at him with a lazy smile and half-closed eyes. She pushed her arms up so that she could thread them around the back of his head and push her fingers into his hair. 

“Why don’t you do that more often?”

“Because it makes us late for class,” he whispered. He was close enough that when he talked his lips brushed against hers.

“Who cares?” she whispered back, trying to capture his lips for another kiss, but he was pulling away.

“Unfortunately, I am burdened with a Prefect badge, and therefore must occasionally follow the rules.”

“Can’t we just skip class just this once?” Astrid asked with a pleading look in her eyes. “We’ve had a very traumatic night, and we should comfort each other.”

Remus laughed. 

She smiled slightly, but she was more interested if it would get her what she wanted.

Her hand that was running through his hair dropped to the back of his neck. Her fingers pressed against the very top of his spine.

She had a small smile on her face, and he had a sneaking suspicion that she knew he liked that.

He was almost unaware that he was bending down to kiss her again. He just knew that suddenly he was lifting her up, and her hands were moving to grip his arms, to feel the defined muscles there, and her legs were wrapping around his waist again. 

They were gasping and breathing hard, and then Remus just stepped away and let her slide to the ground.

“Okay, seriously, my prefect brain is shouting at me to get to class.”

“Merlin, you know how to kill a mood,” Astrid said, leaning against the wall.

Remus rolled his eyes and grinned at her. “Yes, but I also know how to create one,” he said, running his fingers down the inside of her arm, where he knew she was extra sensitive. 

She scowled at him. 

He grinned back at her and took her hand, tugging her down the hallway.

*   *   *

A week later it had started to snow. Nothing serious, just a light dusting that frosted the grounds. 

Remus didn’t like snow, he never had. So he consequently found himself trying to stay indoors as much as possible. He was infinitely grateful that he was not a Quidditch player. 

James was coming back from practices soaking wet and angry at his team. Sirius always took over when that happened, he was the best one to handle James when he was upset.

Remus and Peter had been spending more time together, and Remus had been studying with Astrid more and more. 

She was also sitting with him at meals more, disregarding her place at the Hufflepuff table.

So it was on a Thursday night, when James squelched down the length of the Great Hall with a huge scowl on his face. He sat down across from Remus and next to Wormtail, who looked at him fearfully.

James started pulling all the plates stacked with warm food towards himself, filling his plate.

Lily slid into the seat next to him. “If you eat all of that you won’t be able to get off the ground on Saturday.”

“We’re going to lose the match anyway,” James grumbled. 

“No defeatist attitude,” Lily said calmly, stealing a drumstick from his plate.

Sirius appeared out of nowhere, leaning over Remus to nick the drumstick from her hands. “Thank you,” he said smiling.

Lily scowled at him. 

James laughed a little viciously.

Sirius sat on Remus’s left, and Astrid flopped down next to him on his right. “You would not believe the amount of homework that I’ve got for tonight. It’s like they’re trying to prepare us for our O.W.L.s a year and a half early.”

Remus put a comforting arm around her. “I know the feeling,” he said. “They’re doing the same thing with us.”

“McGonagall gave us a twelve inch paper to do by Monday,” James groaned. 

“Have you started that?” Lily asked with a wicked glint in her eye.

“No, have you?”

“I’m already half done, what about you Remus?”

“I’m finished,” he said, pulling the treacle tart over to himself. 

“What?” James asked with an outraged look on his face. “How did you manage that?”

“By ignoring me half of last night,” Astrid said, frowning affectionately at him.

“Well, Slughorn gave us an 18 inch essay on the effects of Felix Felicis.” Lily said.

“Can you actually write _18 inches_ on that?” Mary asked, sitting next to Lily. It seemed that she had actually gone up to the dormitories to change after Quidditch practice.

“Easily,” Lily said, passing the potatoes to her friend, “I actually went a couple inches over.”

“Yes, I think I might have to as well,” Remus said.

“Your dedication to the academics of which you are so fond of amaze me,” James said wryly.

“So, how’s Quidditch practice going?” Lily asked.

Remus and Sirius exchanged a look.

“What?” Lily asked.

“Nothing, it’s just that that is all we’ve heard about lately.” Remus said.

“Quidditch practice is absolute rubbish!” James said vehemently. “Mary is one of the only good players on the team! Merlin, if I’d known this little talent resided in Gryffindor then I would have just quit the team this year.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Lily rolled her eyes.

James looked perturbed at being a forgone conclusion. 

Mary looked a little bit proud at being complimented.

“I’ll just have to try to catch the snitch early then, won’t I?” Mary said optimistically.

“Yes, please,” James said. “Otherwise we have no chance.”

“Cheer up, Prongs, you’ll do fine,” Sirius said rolling his eyes.

“Who are you even playing?” Astrid whispered into Remus’s ear.

He laughed at her total ignorance of sports. “We’re playing Ravenclaw,” he whispered back.

“Oh, right,” she said, smiling at him softly. “I’m sure I knew that.”

He kissed her quickly. They hardly ever kissed in public, and when they did it was short and sweet.

Astrid blushed delicately, and Lily watched them with a small smile on her face. 

James leaned forward. “When did you two first kiss?” He flinched suddenly, like Lily had just elbowed him in the side. 

“September,” Astrid answered.

“First half or second half?” Sirius asked urgently.

“Second half,” Remus said. “Why?”

“Yes!” Sirius claimed triumphantly, and held his hands out towards Wormtail and James.

Wormtail handed over a couple of galleons with a groan. James patted his wet pocket and said, “I’ll have to pay you later, mate.”

Lily turned to James, “I’ll have you know that you owe me a couple of galleons as well,” she told him. “Mary held Sirius’s hand first.”

“Well, thank you for telling everyone,” Mary said grumpily.

“I’ll pay you later,” James said grumpily.

Astrid leaned forward, “How many times did he ask you out this month?” She asked Lily while nodding her head at James.

Lily frowned, looking at him. “Twice,” she said. “No, three times.”

James stabbed at his food moodily.

Remus looked at Astrid, who was looking triumphant.

“How much did you bet on that?” Lily asked curiously.

“We don’t bet in money,” Astrid said with an ambiguous smile.

“Maybe we should try that,” James said to Lily with a smile. Lily looked at him, surprised and then she started laughing. “I don’t think that will happen.” She laughed so hard that she flipped her spoon full of peas and the vegetables went straight towards James.

James looked down as the peas rolled down the front of his shirt.

“This is not going to end well,” Wormtail muttered as he scooted away on the bench.

James flicked the mashed potatoes on his spoon at her, and it landed in her hair. He grinned wickedly.

She looked shocked.

It disintegrated very quickly after that.

Lily, the prefect who always followed the rules, dumped spoonful of chocolate pudding on James’s hair.

James threw peas back at her, some of which missed and hit Mary.

She took the opportunity to throw her chocolate pudding at Sirius, who was no where near James, who had hit her in the first place.

Remus leaned towards Astrid, bending her over until she was flat against the bench in an effort to get away from the flying missile.

“I suggest a tactical retreat,” he said in her ear.

“I think I would agree,” she breathed back in a strained voice.

Someone over at the Hufflepuff table had gotten some of the pudding from Mary’s throw, and was turning around to respond.

Remus slid off of the bench, taking Astrid’s hand and running to the doors and food started to fly everywhere.

It seemed that the students needed very little initiative to start a food fight. Astrid pulled him back just before they exited the hall. “Hold on,” she said, crouching at the end of the table. 

“What?” Remus asked, kneeling down next to her. 

“This is the perfect time to exact some revenge,” she said. 

“On who?” Remus asked incredulously. 

Astrid’s eyes were darting around the Hall, taking in the lunging bodies and the haze of food that was flying everywhere.

Then she stood up and darted in, bent over in half. She came back with a bowl of mashed potatoes and chocolate pudding.

She pulled out her wand.

“Cecilia Berry,” Astrid told Remus, “she made fun of my scars.”

Remus pulled out his wand. “Well then,” he said, and he levitated part of the pudding and shot it right at the back of her head.

They both ducked underneath the table so that she wouldn’t see them. Astrid was giggling with her hand pressed against her mouth.

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this,” she said.

“Probably not,” Remus agreed.

“Who’s next?” 

“Terry Reynolds,” Remus said without thinking.

“May I?”

“Please.”

The mashed potatoes hit him in a very sensitive spot, and Astrid was overcome with the giggles again.

“Mr. Lupin, Ms. McDougall, what in Merlin’s name is going on here?”

Remus and Astrid scrambled to turn around and looked up into Professor Slughorn’s pudgy purple face.

“I’m afraid that a food fight has broken out sir,” Remus said.

“Yes, I can see that!” His chin wobbled dramatically as he spoke.

“Well then why did you ask?” Astrid asked innocently.

Remus elbowed her in the side.

Slughorn looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “What on earth are you two doing under the table anyway?”

Professor McGonagall swept up behind him. “I would imagine that they are takeing shelter, Horace,” she said crisply. She was pressing her lips together very hard, so that her mouth went thinner than Remus had ever seen it.

“I think it’s time to take this situation in hand, don’t you?” she asked.

She pulled her wand out and pointed it at the ceiling, which was covered in a velvety black and falling snow.

A series of loud bangs went off.

The students all froze where they stood, turning around.

“That’s quite enough of that,” she said. “I don’t want to know what started this, and I certainly don’t want to know who.” She glared around and her gaze seemed to fasten on James and Sirius for a moment, as if she had her suspicions. “Clean it up,” she barked. “Without magic.”

A universal groan went up from the students.

McGonagall turned to Remus and Astrid, “You two can go,” she said. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with it.”

“Absolutely, Professor,” Astrid lied easily. “I have to work on several essays tonight.”

Remus pulled her away before she could say anything else. 

“Are we really going to do homework tonight?” he asked.

She scoffed. “Of course not, we had a bet that you lost, I’m sure we’ll be quite busy snogging each other senseless instead.”

“Okay, but I do have an essay that I should probably work on.”

“Merlin, you’re such a _prefect._ ”


	9. Quidditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a Quidditch match which was terribly fun to write. :) Sorry if the characters get confusing.

James woke up before the sun rose, which was something that almost never happened. He lay there for an hour, trying to get back to sleep.

But his brain kept churning out horror situations, what if Quimbly failed to save a single goal?

What if he dropped the Quaffle in mid air. He could hear the booing in the crowd already.

A tapping came at the window. James groaned and rolled out of bed. 

A brown owl was fluttering next to the window, James took note of the weather automatically. The sun was shining and it looked like there had been rain last night, but the sky was clear now.

James opened the latch on the window and let the owl flutter in. He took the envelope off of it’s leg. 

 

Dear James,

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

  You’re an adult now, do you feel any different? Tell Sirius that he’s not allowed to let you do anything stupid. 

  Good luck on your Quidditch match today, I’m sure that you’ll do wonderfully, there’s no way the team can lose with you as their captain. 

  Your Father and I have been talking, and now that you’re seventeen and a proper adult, we have decided that you are right.

  We’re going to join the Order of the Phoenix. Your Father is writing a letter to Dumbledore as I write this one to you. We’ve thought this through, and we have decided that this is the right course of action for us. There is no greater task than ridding the world of You-Know-Who. We are outnumbered badly right now, I almost wish that we had joined earlier.

  If, in the event that we are killed, there is enough money to get you through school and for much longer. I’m sorry that your Birthday letter must include such sad contents, but such is the world we live in.

  Now, I know that now you’re seventeen you’ll be begging Dumbledore to join the Order yourself. I have it from Dumbledore himself that one cannot join the Order until one is seventeen  and  graduated from school. So, my dear, you’ll have to wait a year and half for your own membership.

  Your Father and I would like you to know that we love you very much, and that we’re so proud of the man that you’ve become. If anything does happen to us as we fight the Death Eaters we hope that you will continue to be that man. With any luck we will all survive this, excepting, of course He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

  Send Sirius and the others our love.

 

Love from your mother,

Eliza Potter

 

Somewhere in the middle of the letter the owl flew out of the window again. James walked back to his bed and lay down. For the moment, he was ignoring the pile of presents that was at the end of his bed.

So his parents were part of the Order then. Suddenly he was much more worried about them than the Quidditch match. 

James heard Sirius roll over in his bed.

James sighed, sitting up and reaching towards the end of the bed. He had a small pile of presents there. He reached for the first one.

Remus, in true academic fashion, had gotten him a book. _Defensive charms and  Jinxes_ looked like it would actually more than useful at Fyre. James gripped the book tighter, thinking of joining the Order when he graduated, he decided to take a dedicated look through the spells later.

He picked up Peter’s present, which, on opening he found was a container of Bertie Botts Ever Flavor Beans. He opened them up, they were all the same strange yellow color. He lifted one to his mouth and darted his tongue out to lick it really fast. He frowned, he couldn’t taste anything. He placed it on his tongue and bit down. 

“Ugh!” He dove for the Honeydukes chocolate that Lily had gotten him and crammed  one in his mouth.

Sirius pulled his hangings back and peered at James. “Areyoubeingattacked?” he slurred.

“No,” James muttered around his chocolate. “Go back to sleep.”

Sirius muttered something and then got up out of bed, swaying on his feet slightly. He reached over and stole a chocolate from James. 

“Here,” James said, holding out the letter from his parents. “You should probably read this.”

Sirius took the piece of parchment and sat down on the edge of James’s bed. James turned back to the presents. Sirius had gotten him a package of dungbombs, along with a note, ‘ _I have plans for these.’_

“Do you want to enlighten me on this?” James asked, waving the dungbumbs under his nose.

“Hmmm?” Sirius looked up from the letter. “Oh, well, if everything goes according to plan, meaning if we win the Qudditch match today, those won’t be needed until Monday.”

“Right.” James leaned over to pick up the present from his parents. They had sent him a gold watch, with stars instead of numbers around the edge of the circle. James grinned, placing it carefully on the bed. He wished he could carry it around in his pocket, a reminder that he was of age now, but he didn’t want it to get damaged in the Quidditch match.

Remus pulled his hangings back after a while, and sat at the edge of his bed wearily with his head hanging down.

“Late night?” James asked with a smirk. 

Remus gave him a weary look and said, “Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.”

Remus wandered into the bathroom that was connected with their dorm room.

Sirius put the letter down on bed, rubbing his hand over his eyes and groaning. “I guess it’s a good thing,” he said.

“Yeah,” James said slowly. “If they help get rid of _him._ ”

“Right, they’ll be fine. They’re both accomplished wizards, they can take care of themselves.”

James looked at Sirius, who was falsely cheerful to make him feel better. 

He nodded.

Sirius clapped him on the back and then went back to his own bed. 

James opened his trunk and started to pull on his Quidditch robes. The red robes were comforting somehow. Even with You-Know-Who terrorizing the world, Quidditch matches still go on.

Wormtail pulled back the hangings on his bed and stumbled out of bed just as Remus emerged from the bathroom.

“Thanks for your present,” James said sarcastically.

Wormtail brightened almost immediately. “Happy Birthday,” he said grinning. 

“Rotten eggs, Wormtail, really?” James asked. “That was seriously the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.”

James could hear Sirius laughing.

He rolled his eyes at his best friend’s amusement and started down the stairs. “I’m going to breakfast.”

“I’ll go with you,” Remus said, pulling his robes on hurriedly. 

They made their way down to the Great Hall. Breakfast was spread across the tables, making James’s stomach growl. He wanted to eat as much as he could, but he knew that would only make him sick when he got in the air.

He paced himself, eating just a little bit.

Lily sat down next to him. “Happy Birthday!” she said brightly.

“Thank you,” he said. 

“So I think that we need to have Fyre twice a week,” she said.

“Why?”

Remus looked up from across the table. “I think that’s a great idea,” he said. “It gives everyone more of a chance to work on their spellwork.”

“Exactly,” Lily said. “Spellwork.”

“Why were you so interested in Fyre in the first place?” James asked. “I mean, you kind of jumped on the idea and made it happen.” 

He hadn’t thought about it before now, but the entire idea seemed a little bit fishy.

Lily shifted, looking uncomfortable. “I just think that people need to know how to defend themselves.”

“There’s something your not telling me.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything, James,” she snapped.

“Right,” he said, stabbing at his potatoes with his fork. “I just thought, that since I’m your friend, you might want to tell me.”

Lily sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry, that was rude.”

He looked her over. “If I asked you to go out with me would you say yes?”

“No.”

Astrid slid in next to Remus. She kissed him hello, and James tried not to think what it would be like to have Lily kiss him hello. He sighed somewhat loudly.

“If you stopped asking, I could stop saying no,” Lily suggested quietly so that Remus and Astrid wouldn’t hear.

“Lily, I can’t stop asking. Because what if on the one day you might say yes, I didn’t ask?”

“What happens when you find another girl? Are you going to keep asking then?”

James almost laughed. “There is no other girl. There never will be.”

Lily’s face softened. And she opened her mouth to say something, judging by the slightly worried and uncomfortable look on her face, James didn’t think it was going to be any good.

He stood up, “I’ve got to go,” and he rushed out of the hall.

 

“Alright team,” James said, pacing in front of them.

“Can we skip the speech?” Melissa Annelli asked. She twirled her beaters bat experimentally. 

“We have to win this one,” Zane Weyland said, her fellow beater.

“Just work together as a team,” Green said. She smiled winningly.

“Remember the tactics we practiced,” Sharra repeated in a dull monotone.

“Block the Quaffle,” Quimbley said.

“Catch the Snitch,” Mary said.

James looked at all of them. 

“Don’t worry boss,” Sharra said. “We’ll kick their asses.”

“Language,” Cornelia said.

“Sorry Green, forgot you disliked curses.” Michael grinned sarcastically at her.

“Okay, let’s just do this,” James said hurriedly. Quimbley had stood up to defend Cornelia. Quimbley was looking for any fight he could possibly pick with Sharra after that disastrous practice a couple of weeks ago.

He led the way out onto the pitch. 

“And the Gryffindors lead the way out onto the pitch,” Dean Levine’s voice boomed out over the ptich. “Potter has put together an interesting team this year. Quimbley is still the Keeper, and he’s kept Green as a chaser, adding Michael Sharra as a Chaser in addition to himself. The beaters are previous unknowns, Melissa Anelli and Zane Weyland. Mary McDonnel is a latecomer to the team as the Seeker, time will tell if this patchwork team will be victorious.”

James held his broom in a death grip. A team in blue stalked across the pitch towards them. James was gripping his broom so tightly that he couldn’t feel his knuckles.

“Samuel Prine is the captain of the Ravenclaw team, and he has an old team that has experience. Cashore, Mancall and Davies were all on the team last year and have proved their worth as Chasers. Morgerstern is a new addition as a beater, joining Carey, who is widely regarded as the best keeper around, I don’t see it personally. Goldman is the seeker, and she is a light girl, perfect build for a seeker, but she’s only a second year, so we’ll see if her lack of experience is detrimental.” Levine paused. “We can only hope it is,” the crowd roared at that, the blue and green booing and the red and yellow cheering.

Prine, the keeper and captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, held his hand out to James.

They shook, not grimacing at the strength the either was pouring into the handshake.

“Mount your brooms,” Madame Ames said.

James kicked his leg over. 

“And they’re off!” Levine shouted over the yells of the crowd. “The Quaffle is in play immediately, taken by Potter and passed to Green and to Sharra and back to Green and -IT’S BLOCKED by Prine, and the Quaffle goes out to Cashore and the Davies, and a nice bludger by Anelli! Davies drops the Quaffle and Sharra catches it. He’s off down the pitch, and FOUL! FOUL!”

Morgenstern had swung his bat right at Sharra’s face, it connected with a dull _thud._  

Madame Ames shouted from the ground. “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HIT PLAYERS IN THE FACE, MORGENSTERN.”

“I thought it was a bludger,” he yelled completely unconvincingly.

Gryffindor was given a free shot at the Ravenclaw hoops.

“Sharra lines up, he shoots, and- TEN POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR!”

The red and yellow went wild, cheering madly. James grinned down at them. He was so much less nervous up in the air than he was on the ground. 

“And Mancall has the Quaffle, but he’s intercepted by Cornelia Green, I love that girl, and she scores another ten points for Gryffindor!”

James high fives Green as she zooms past him on her broom.

“It’s twenty-nil to Gryffindor now, and Davies has the Quaffle again.”

Weyland shot a bludger towards Davies, but he dodged it, and James cursed, speeding in behind him. But try as he might, he couldn’t snatch the Quaffle from Davies without enacting a foul.

He passed it to Cashore, who aimed at the hoops and shot.

James held his breath, watching as Quimbley dove for the Quaffle and it soared straight through his outstretched hands.

“And it’s ten points to Ravenclaw,” Levine mumbled.

The blue cheered, but the red almost drowned them out with the booing.

“OH- OUCH!” Levine yelled, “Weyland gets hit in the face from Carey, his nose looks bad. Get ‘em back Weyland!”

Zane had tried to do just that, his bludger went straight into Carey’s stomach, making him double over in pain.

“HA! TAKE THAT YOU LOUSY PIECE OF-”

“Levine!” Professor McGonagall’s voice came over the intercom. 

“Sorry, Professor, just showing how emotionally invested I am, spectators like to know that the commentator care- AND POTTER’S GOT THE QUAFFLE, he’s making his way down the pitch, passes to Sharra, Anelli gives Mancall a Bludger so he doesn’t interfere, and PRINE BLOCKS IT!”

James cursed.

“GOLDMAN IS DIVING! IS THAT THE SNITCH?!”

James whirled around on his broom. Goldman was indeed diving, and Mary was no where near her, she was all the way across the pitch, a look of horror on her face. 

“AND WEYLAND HITS A BLUDGER THAT KNOCKS HER OFF HER COURSE. That was a close one, Ladies and Gentlemen. It looks like McDonnel isn’t going to let Goldman three feet away from her now, she’s tailing her, blocking her at every turn.”

The audience below groaned and cheered for the false alarm.

“And Mancall is flying up the pitch with the Quaffle and he passes to Cashore and she shoots and- IT GOES IN! WHERE IS THE JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD? We’re tied twenty-twenty.”

“Get it together, Quimbley!” James yelled.

“Sorry boss!” 

James caught the Quaffle and flew off down the pitch, wondering where Green and Sharra were, he couldn’t pass to them if they weren’t there.

“The Ravenclaw chasers are blocking Green and Sharra from coming up the pitch! It looks like Potter is on his own- AND THAT HAS GOT TO BE A FOUL!”

The Quaffle dropped from James’s arms as a bludger hit his right arm. He gasped in pain. He was sure that his arm was broken. He had heard the snap. James fought to stay conscience on his broom, he couldn’t very well hurtle to the ground now.

“THAT HAS GOT TO BE A FOUL!” Levine was still yelling. “OH THOSE RAVENCLAWS, THEY’RE NOTHING BUT LYING CHEATING SONS OF-”

“LEVINE IF YOU DON’T CONTROL YOUR LANGUAGE RIGHT NOW YOU WILL NEVER DO THIS JOB AGAIN!” McGonagall screamed.

James looked down to see that Levine had actually climbed up onto the podium that was he was supposed to be behind and was standing high above McGonagall, dancing out of her reach as she reached for the microphone. He was letting loose every curse word that James had ever heard in his life.

“ABSOLUTELY NO HONOR!” he was shouting. “I CAN’T BELIEVE THEM- _AND MCDONNEL SEEMS TO HAVE SEEN SOMETHING ON THE GROUND_!! MCDONNEL AND GOLDMAN ARE DIVING AND I THINK THAT IS THE SNITCH!”

James looked down, trying to focus his eyes onto the girls at the end of the pitch. He didn’t think he had even moved since he had been hit with a bludger.

“SHIT!” Levine screamed.

“LEVINE!” McGonagall screamed in turn.

“ _It was a feint by McDonnel,_ oh, that crafty girl, I hear she’s dating resident bad boy Sirius Black.”

“This is not a gossip stand!” McGonagall hissed.

“Oooo, Goldman doesn’t look so good, crashing into the ground doesn’t seem to be agreeing with her.”

James looked up above him. Someone in blue-was that Cashore? was flying directly above him with the Quaffle in their hands.

“Damn it,” he said to himself. He nudged his broom up towards Cashore and took her by surprise, plucking the Quaffle out of her hands easily. His broken arm was hanging at his side, useless, and he was steering with his knees.

“Potter’s got the Quaffle! And he’s flying with no hands, that’s some talent! He passes it off to Green, who passes it to Sharra, who throws it to Green and SCORE! TEN POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR! It’s thirty-twenty to Gryffindor!”

James duly managed to note that something black was coming his way. His good hand gripped the handle of his broom and his instincts took over.

He rolled in midair, barely missing the Bludger.

“YOU SCUM!” Levine shrieked. “YOU ALREADY BROKE HIS ARM AND NOW YOU’RE TRYING TO UNSEAT HIM TOO?”

“DEAN LEVINE, GET DOWN OFF OF THAT PODIUM THIS INSTANT!”

“You aren’t my mother,” Levine sang a little bit as he danced on top of the narrow wooden structure.

James could hardly focus, he just wanted this match to end and then Madam Pomfrey could fix him up and then maybe Lily would visit him in the hospital wing...

“And Mancall has the Quaffle and he shoots and Quimbley blocks it!”

James sent a tired smile over in Quimbley’s direction, even though he couldn’t see it.

“GO GO GRYFFINDOR, GO GO GRYFFINDOR,” the stands chanted from below.

“Alright boss?” Sharra asked as he flew by.

James scowled at him and started to fly next to Green who was in possession of the Quaffle.

She gave him a scared look, Sharra was being blocked by Davies, and Mancall was lurking ahead of her so she couldn’t score.

“Can you take it?” she screamed.

He nodded wordlessly, lifting his good arm off of the handle of his broom and reaching out to catch the Quaffle awkwardly. He yelled in wordless pain as his broken arm tried to move and pain shot up his arm. 

There was absolutely no way that he was going to be able to aim with his left arm, and Green and Sharra were still tied up with the other team.

So James did the only thing he could do. He flew straight towards Prine, who didn’t seem to know how to take it. 

“What is Potter doing?” Levine wondered out loud.

Prine seemed ready to collide with him in midair, but James turned to the right at the last instant, putting his unbroken arm close to the hoops. His knees clamped tightly around his broom, and he flew right next to the right goal hoop and he reached out, sticking his arm through and dropping the Quaffle on the other side. 

As soon as he was done he clutched at his broom again, trying to maintain his balance.

“AHAHAHAHAHA!!! IS THAT EVEN LEGAL? AHAHAHAHA!!” Levine was enjoying this new development too much. “That is the best move in Quidditch history!” he was gasping.

McGonagall was just staring up at the hoops with her hat off kilter, too distracted to tell Levine to get off of the podium.

James gasped heavily through the pain and in a blurry vision he saw Mary start to speed down the pitch. 

_Please let it be over,_ he thought.

“MCDONNEL IS GOING DOWN THE PITCH WITH GOLDMAN BEHIND HER, AND THIS IS IT, I CAN SEE THE SNITCH!”

Levine was dancing on the podium, and James wondered how he wasn’t falling off.

“MARY IS IN FRONT, THIS COULD BE IT! AND SHE DOES IT! MARY MCDONNEL CATCHES THE SNITCH AND WINS THE MATCH FOR GRYFFINDOR!!”

James sighed in relief and started to drift towards the ground.

The rest of the team was speeding towards him and he turned his broken arm away from them automatically, protecting it. 

“WE DID IT WE DID IT WE DID IT!” They were chanting, and they slammed into him.

“OW!” he yelled, to remind him that he was injured, and they laughed.

Mary was holding the snitch up in the air like a trophy and Weyland had dried blood that was coming out from his nose and was all over the front of his nose and Sharra’s nose started bleeding all over again.

James smiled at them and let himself be carried with the crowd towards the castle and into the Hospital Wing.

Lily didn’t visit him in the Hospital Wing, probably because he was in and out in a couple of minutes. Broken bones weren’t much of a problem for Madame Pomfrey. But that didn’t stop James from imagining scenarios when she came in to make sure that he was okay, that he hadn’t been permanently injured, and to tell him that he had flown exceptionally well today.

He made his way back to the Fat Lady’s portrait, and gave the password (“Dragons Breath”) and stepped into the common room that was already a raging party.

Sirius stepped forward and threw an arm around his shoulders, pressing a butterbeer into his hands.

“James Potter!” he roared to the crowd. “Who scored a goal with a broken arm and steering with his knees while doing it!”

The crowd roared in response.

James rubbed his forehead, he should have asked Madame Pomfrey for something for a headache. He hadn’t realized it after the major pain in his arm had gone away, his headache seemed trivial.

It wasn’t as trivial with a crowd roaring in his ears.

He pushed his way through the crowd, people slapping him on the back as he went along.

“Nice commentary,” he said into Levine’s ear as he passed him.

Dean turned around to grin at him. “I’ve got detention for a month for my commentary today,” he said proudly. “It was completely worth it.”

James laughed at him and clapped him on the back.

He found Lily in a corner, with her arms crossed. She was surveying the crowd with a distasteful look.

He dropped down in a chair next to her, sighing.

“Nice flying,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Was your arm broken?” she asked, finally turning to face him full on. His stomach flipped flopped.

“In two places,” James said, “but it’s fine now.” He held it up as proof.

“Idiot,” she said, “You shouldn’t have tried to continue to play after that.”

He shrugged. “It’s Quidditch. You don’t stop for a broken bone.”

“I don’t get it,” she threw up her hands. “I honestly don’t get this obsession with Quidditch. What’s so great about it?”

“What’s so great about potions?” he countered.

She scowled at him. “Okay, fair point.”

He grinned, raising the butterbeer to his lips and taking a sip. He carefully took note of how Lily stared.

Abruptly she turned away from him and looked out at the crowd again.

The crowd cheered again loudly as Mary said something.

James groaned and slapped his hands over his ears. “I don’t even have time for this,” he said. “I still have about a billion and a half essays to write before Monday.”

Lily looked over him. “I know, I do too.”

“Well, then why are you here? You’re not obligated to be here.”

“Neither are you, you can leave just as well,” Lily arched an eyebrow at him.

“I’m the Captain of the team, so I have to make an appearance, which is done now, so now I can leave, but you don’t have to be here at all.”

“Had to show for Mary,” she said. “And I wanted to talk to you.”

A warm feeling spread out from his stomach.

“Oh, did you?” he asked with a smile.

She scowled at him. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

“Okay, right,” James said, but he couldn’t keep the grin off of his face.

“Stop reading into that,” she snapped at him irritably. “You are not God’s gift to women,” she snapped.

“I never said I was. But the fact that you’re the one who actually said it that makes me think that you do think that.”

Lily stood up quickly. 

“I’m going to the library,” she said. “You are welcome to come if you want. But I will be working, which means no talking.”

She glared at him.

“I would love to come,” he said. James tilted back his butterbeer bottle to finish off the rest of it.

Lily wrenched her eyes away and all but ran up the stairs to her dormitory to get her schoolbag. 

James grinned to himself and then went to go retrieve his own things.


	10. The Secret

Lily rested her forehead against the wooden pole of her bed. What was she thinking? She had had it completely under control for the past year, it wasn’t even a problem. But then she had go and become friends with him.

That was probably the worst idea she had ever had, hands down. But she’d thought she could still have friends, even if she couldn’t have had a romantic interest.

She thought he was going to fall off of his broom today at the match. Her heart had stopped beating, like after sixteen years of working just fine it had suddenly forgotten how to do it’s job properly.

So she had waited for him in the common room, just to make sure that he was alright. Friends did that, right? Merlin, this was harder than she’d ever thought it would be.

And she couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, which was something that definitely had to stop. Because that was something that friends definitely do _not_ do. And friends definitely do not fantasize about their friend kissing them, and how soft his lips would be and how it would feel to have his hands on her waist . . .

Lily straightened up abruptly, pushing every thought about James Potter out of her mind firmly.

Maybe, if things had been different, if her life had taken just a slight turn, she could have said yes to him this morning, or last month, or the month before that. But she couldn’t change the past, and so she had to keep saying no. 

She clenched her teeth together, realizing that she was thinking about him again. It was like a disease, he invaded her thoughts every moment of every day. 

She shoved her books into her bag and slung it over her shoulder, heading back down into the din of the party.

James was casually leaning against wall next to the staircase, with a book bag over his shoulder.

Levine was talking to him, “Man, you can’t leave the party, you’re the Captain of the team, it’s all about you.”

“Sorry,” James laid a hand on his shoulder. “I have a lot of essays to do.”

He looked up as Lily descended the stairs, and Levine’s face dawned with understanding. “Right,” he said. “Have fun at the _library._ ” He winked at James.

James leaned in and said something that Lily couldn’t hear, but Levine looked just nodded, the grin sliding off of his face somewhat.

James turned to her, “Come on, let’s go.”

She hopped off of the last couple stairs and they pushed their way through the crowd.

They climbed out of the portrait hole together, leaving behind a giggling Fat Lady, who was apparently using the celebration as an excuse to get drunk.

“Okay, but honestly, what is it about potions that you like so much?” James asked.

Lily frowned at him. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m honestly curious, I don’t understand it.” 

She peeked up at him, he did look honestly curious. “I don’t know, it’s just that I like the idea of several different on related things coming together to make something totally different.”

James nodded, “I guess I can understand that, I mean that’s kind of what Fyre is, when you think about it. A bunch of people come together and as a group they’re different than what they are individually.”

Lily nodded, biting her lip to keep her insistent smile from coming out.

Apparently he noticed. It consistently amazed her that he was able to notice so much about her and understand so much of what she told him.

“Why do you always keep from smiling when you’re with me?” He asked, and he looked a little but troubled.

“I ... It just might encourage you in the wrong direction,” she finally said.

James sighed. “Do you want me to stop? I can stop if you want me to, I’ll stop asking you out if that means we can be friends. I’ll stop if it makes you feel like you can smile with me.”

He looked so distraught and earnest that Lily wanted to hug him. She adjusted the straps on her bag to give her hands something to do.

The truth was that she liked it when he asked her out, because it reminded her that he liked her. She just didn’t want to turn him down anymore. Except that she couldn’t say yes.

So really what she wanted was for him to keep asking, for her to turn him down, and to break his heart every day for the rest of the time that they were friends, and all because she liked to be reminded that she was liked.

That seemed to be incredibly selfish. 

“I’ll smile when I’m with you, and you can do whatever you fell like is necessary, deal?” she asked.

There, that way she put it in his hands, and she felt a little less guilty and now she didn’t have to hide her smile.

“Deal,” James decided. “I think we should seal it with a kiss,” he added as an afterthought.

She looked at him surprised, trying to hide the blush in her cheeks. Maybe he could tell that she had been thinking about kissing him earlier. The corner of his mouth twitched, and they both started laughing, which they had to stifle quickly as they approached the library.

James held the door open for her, which made her smile again. The thought came that they are, in fact, acting very couple-y, but she tried not to think about that too hard.

They settled down at a table and Lily pulled out her Transfiguration textbook. James did the same across from her. They each pulled out their respective parchments, Lily’s was already half covered in writing, and James’s was completely blank.

Lily flipped open the book to the page she needed and then dipped her quill into ink and started to write. She already had the rest of her essay planned out. She couldn’t sleep last night, and whenever that happened it seemed like she inevitably started to think about homework. 

James tapped his quill against his cheek for several minutes while looking through the book pausing every so often to check something. Then he dipped his quill into his ink bottle and began to write furiously.

His handwriting was atrocious, Lily noticed as she looked up once. It was probably so bad because he was writing so fast. It meant that they both finished their essay at the same time. 

Lily pulled out her Potions essay to review and add to slightly while James looked over his Transfiguration essay again. His tongue was sticking out between his teeth slightly, and Lily was not noticing that. He added something, and Lily was not watching his every move.

“Done,” he said triumphantly and rolled his parchment up, putting it back in his bag. 

“I think I am too,” she said absently, when in all honesty she hadn’t taken in a word of what she had written in the last ten minutes. It was like her brain went on autopilot.

“Shall we go?” James asked uncertainly. He pulled out a golden watch that Lily hadn’t seen before. “The party will be in full swing by now,” he frowned at the time.

“Well, why don’t we go eat in the Great Hall then?”

James nodded.

Lily was relieved that they weren’t going back to the party. She had no interest in trying to talk to other people at the moment, and to be frank, she wanted to spend time alone with James, which was something that didn’t happen very often.

They started to walk down the stairs and Lily had to stop herself from grabbing his arm to steady herself. She wondered when actions like this seemed natural, even though she’d never done them before.

“Okay, but admit it, you were worried about me,” James said suddenly. 

“What?” Lily asked.

“In the common room, you were waiting, you didn’t want to be at the party, you were worried about me.”

“I wasn’t,” she denied automatically.

“Well, then why were you there?” James asked. He had an insufferable smile on his face. It was times like these when Lily remembered very clearly why she hated him. 

“I told you, I was there for Mary.”

“Mary doesn’t care if you’re at the party or not, Lily, and don’t even try to deny it.”

Lily frowned trying to think of a good response. “I wasn’t worried about you,” she finally repeated. She tightened her hold on the strap to her bag.

“You can’t even think of an argument.”

“I knew that you would be okay, Madame Pomfrey is perfectly able to fix a broken arm.”

“Then why were you still at the party?” James insisted.

“Potter!” A yell came from behind. 

“Shit,” James breathed. 

Lily looked behind them. Prine was jogging up to them, his blue scarf bouncing around his neck. 

James put his hands behind his back, one hand sliding up the other sleeve to grasp his wand.

Lily slid her hand into her bag where her wand was hidden. 

She didn’t think there was much of a reason to worry, but James clearly did, and that was enough for her. 

“I just wanted to say nice game,” Prine said as he slid to a stop in front of them. 

James relaxed a fraction, “Thank you,” he said. “You played well.”

Prine smiled tightly and his gaze slid over to Lily. “Evans, right?” He stuck his hand out without an answer.

Her eyes flicked over to James’s, he was looking carefully neutral. Reluctantly Lily let go of her wand and shook his hand once. 

He held on slightly longer than she wanted him to. She had to tug her hand away, which made James tense up again.

“You’re good with potions right?” Prine asked.

Lily nodded wordlessly. She slid her hand back into her bag to graps the end of her wand. She felt much better.

“Would you mind helping me out sometimes, I can’t seem to get the hang of it.” He smiled at her, it felt more like a leer. “It would help me out a lot.”

Lily opened her mouth and no sound came out. She cleared her throat. “I don’t think so,” she said firmly.

“Why not?” 

“I don’t like you very much,” Lily said, tilting her head to the side.

James laughed. 

Prine looked down at her. “They did tell me that you were a bit rude.” He stepped closer.

James pulled his wand out of his sleeve but kept his arms behind his back.

“Who told you that?” Lily asked. Her voice wasn’t quavering, but she felt like it should have been. Unfortunately she couldn’t pull her wand out without being obvious. It seemed like an oversight in retrospect. She should start storing her wand in her sleeve like James.

“Tell me, did you enjoy your last trip into Hogsmeade?” Prine asked.

Lily could feel the color drain out of her face. She pulled her wand out and pointed it at his chest. 

“Stop playing around,” she demanded. “What do you know?”

Prine grinned. 

James was fumbling around in his bag for something. He was facing away from Prine, down the corridor.

“Lily,” he said.

“Not now,” she snapped, moving her wand up to point in between Prine’s eyes.

“There’s more,” James said. He pulled something out of his bag, having found what he was looking for. “Sirius,” he said.

Lily looked around for Black, but he wasn’t around.

James was looking into a mirror. “Fourth floor, need your help,” James said. He stuffed the mirror back into the bag and looked up just in time to dodge a jinx from the two that were coming down the corridor. 

“Two more from this way too,” Lily informed him.

“We’re completely outnumbered,” he said.

“ _Stupefy,”_ Lily said calmly, and Prine crumpled to the floor. “Better odds now,” she said. 

James laughed.

Lily felt a smile come to her face as well. There was something about dueling that she liked. 

Adrenaline started to run through her veins, and she leveled her wand at the two approaching her. 

She had learned a fair number of jinxes during Fyre, but she had never practiced dueling two people at one time. 

The two that were approaching her were Slytherins, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. She knew of them both, but had never spoken to either of them. Mulciber was one, and the other was a girl named Melanie Grisham. 

Grisham flicked her wand and a hex shot out. Lily cast a nonverbal shield charm, taking a moment to be proud that she could do that when she was being attacked.

She sent a spell towards both of the Slytherins individually, Mulciber blocked his, but Grisham wasn’t quick enough. Her legs snapped together, and she fell over.

Mulciber continued to advance, and Lily griped her wand tighter. 

James seemed to be doing well enough in the other direction, at least he didn’t seem to be affected by any spells, and the two he was fighting weren’t getting much closer.

“ _Petrificus Totalus,”_ Lily whispered, and a jet of light shot out of her wand.

Mulciber waved the spell away with his wand and furrowed his eyebrows. He seemed to be concentrating on a specific spell.

Lily was just preparing to hex him when James knocked into her from behind.

She staggered forward and turned to catch his weight. She lowered him to the ground slowly. He had angry red boils erupting all along his skin. 

He was gritting his teeth from the pain. The boils looked like little hills across his skin. They covered his face and his arms and his hands, and they were still growing. As far as Lily could tell, they covered all of his skin.

Lily looked behind to see the two he was fighting. One of them was down on the ground, stunned. He was a Hufflepuff, someone that Lily had shared classes with for several years. 

He had seemed nice, she almost couldn’t believe that he was involved in this. They had worked together in Herbology. 

The other, another Slytherin, was walking towards Lily.

She pointed her wand at him and tried to disarm him, but his shield charm was too fast.

James’s wand clattered out of his hand, his skin was so raw to the touch he couldn’t even hold it anymore. 

Lily tried not to think about how much it would hurt to be laying down on the ground like that.

The Slytherin that was walking towards her, Avery, slashed his wand and a cut appeared on her cheek. It burned like someone had replaced her blood with fire. She slapped a hand over the cut and looked at the blood disbelievingly.

Lily narrowed her eyes, and was about to retaliate, but then Mulciber’s spell worked.

A very large snake burst out of the end of his wand and landed on the ground with a thud. It coiled there, and then started to advance on Lily. 

She backed up against the wall, leaving James between the snake and her.

Lily did not like snakes. She did not like the way they moved or the way they hissed, and she did not like it when they were advancing on her.

Her back hit stone, and the snake stopped right in front of James, who looked like he had passed out. 

Lily was shaking like a leaf in an autumn breeze. She raised her wand to point it at the snake, and it reared back, preparing to bite James in his neck.

Avery slashed his wand again, and a cut appeared in her arm, making her aim go wild. 

She tried to ignore him, and concentrated on the snake again. 

A spell shot out of her wand, and the snake turned into a rather large tree branch. 

She sagged against the wall. 

Avery was pointing his wand at her again, and Lily raised her wand to try and fend him off. 

She was very tired all of the sudden, like the adrenaline had gone out of her system and she was left with no energy.

She heard footsteps and saw Sirius and Remus running down the hallway with Peter just slightly behind.

Lily slid down the wall and started to crawl over to James. 

Mulciber was running back down the hall and Sirius was chasing after him. “Don’t run away like a girl!” He was yelling.

Lily picked up James’s wand and held it in her shaking hand. 

“Lily, it’s fine, the cure is really simple,” Remus was saying.

Peter knelt down next to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. It was only then that she realized she was crying.

She wiped her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”

Remus didn’t even pay her any mind, but started to mutter an incantation and James’s skin began to clear up.

As boils shrank slowly Lily sniffed thickly and wiped her hand underneath her nose.

Peter was patting her shoulder awkwardly. 

Lily stood up from her crouch and walked over to Grisham. She snatched her wand up from the floor. The Slytherin had been dragging herself over to reach it. 

Lily pointed her wand at her.

“What do you know?” She asked.

Grisham grinned up at her. “Where should I start? I know what you think you are, and I know what the Dark Lord thinks of you. I don’t see it personally,” she dismissed it with a sneer and continued in her nasally voice. “I don’t think you’re anything special. I think you’re going to die an early death because there will be no one to protect you and there will be no reason for you to continue living.”

Lily raised her fist that contained all three wands to point at Grisham. She was considering all the worst spells that she had at her disposal. But a hand encircled her wrist, and she looked up to see Remus shaking his head at her.

Sirius came back around the corner with Professor McGonagall in tow. 

“What on earth were you thinking, Black?” she was saying. “Honestly I don’t know how you stumble onto so much trouble.”

“Neither do I, Professor,” he answered with a jaunty smile. 

Lily ripped her arm out of Remus’s grip and walked back over to James. She dropped back onto her knees beside him. She ran her fingertips along the inside of hi forearm once, quick enough so that no one else would see.

He opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times before trying to sit up. “Umph,” he managed to get out before pressing the heel of a hand against his forehead. “My head hurts,” he mumbled.

He peered at her and then reached out to touch her jaw. She froze. 

James turned her head to the side and looked at the cut on her cheek. He exhaled through his nose and dropped his hand. 

She resisted the urge to touch him again.

Really, this wanting to touch him all the time could not be normal. Maybe someone had slipped her a love potion and that’s why she was wanting to act so irrationally. 

“Professor,” James said, “Would you?” He gestured to Lily’s cuts.

“Yes, of course. Miss Evans?” McGonagall waved her over. “Mr. Lupin, would be so kind as to fetch the Headmaster, please, I think he would want to know about this.”

Remus nodded and walked down the hall.

Professor McGonagall muttered some incantations over Lily’s cuts and they knitted together, taking the dull pain away with them.

“What happened?” she asked.

James started to tell the story, and just as he was finishing Dumbledore and Remus came back and and he had to start all over again.

McGonagall gave Lily an appreciative look when she told them about transforming the snake. She had wiped the tears away, but she still trembled a little bit telling that part.

James looked like he was going to put his arm around her before stiffening in place again.

She desperately wanted him to comfort her, and she accepted the fact with weary resignation. There was just something about him that made her crazy.

Dumbledore listened with patience, going over and examining four others that they had stunned and jinxed.

“Where is Mulciber?” he asked in his calm voice.

“He’s in the next corridor, sprouting many different flowers from different points of his body. Some of which are poisonous,” Sirius said cheerfully.

Dumbledore looked up at McGonagall, “And you left him there?”

“It seemed unlikely that he was going anywhere,” she deadpanned.

Dumbledore’s beard twitched slightly.

James sidled over to her and turned to face her. 

“They came for you,” he said quietly.

Lily froze for a moment, her brain going into overdrive, considering all of the different lies that she could tell him. As each different explanation came up she discarded it as too unlikely, and each was worse than the last.

Eventually she just nodded.

“Why?” he asked.

She sighed and leaned forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder.

He stiffened at the contact, and then stepped forward slightly to make it more comfortable. 

She bit her lip to keep from smiling. 

Merlin’s pants, there was so much wrong with this.

She stepped back to see that Remus and Peter were watching them. “I’ll talk to you about it later,” she whispered.

Dumbledore flicked his wand and the four assailants levitated up he started to walk with them down the corridor. 

“Please go and see Madame Pomfrey to make sure that you are all healthy,” he said kindly, “Professor McGonagall, would you go and fetch Mulciber and follow after me?”

She nodded and started to walk off.

The five students started to turn to go to the hospital wing.

“Miss Evans?” Dumbledore said.

Lily and James turned around. “I’d like to see you in my office tonight, if you don’t mind.”

She nodded at him, and turned to go with the four boys.

James gave her a questioning look, but she ignored him. 

James congratulated Sirius on his excellent work on Mulciber, which he accepted with a huge smile and promptly told the story again.

Lily tuned out, preferring to focus on walking, which suddenly seemed very trivial in light of everything else that was happening.

And the way James’s arm kept bumping into hers, that was trivial too, but she couldn’t stop noticing it.

They reached the Hospital Wing, where James placed his hand at the small of her back and guided in the door, which made her stomach contract weirdly. 

Peter and Remus didn’t need to be checked at all, since they hadn’t been hit with any spells, but Sirius had apparently been hit with a jinx that made his hair grow, because it had become steadily longer the longer that they walked.

He waved it away good-naturedly, hopping up on a bed to wait his turn.

“What happened?” Madame Pomfrey asked briskly.

“We got into a duel,” Lily said. “You should probably check James first though,” she added. “He was covered in boils.” She crossed her arms, her hands cupping her elbows.

It exposed the cut on her arm quite clearly, which McGonagall hadn’t healed because she hadn’t known about it. Lily had honestly forgotten about it until just then.

“Lily first,” James said firmly, and Madam Pomfrey nodded.

She healed the cut and then asked Lily if she had any other injuries. 

“No, that was it, I’m fine,” Lily said.

“Remus, do you have any scissors?” Sirius asked distractedly as he started to gather up his waist length hair in his hands.

“I don’t,” Remus said as he smiled at Sirius’s predicament.

Madame Pomfrey flicked her wand and his hair stopped growing and began to shrink back into his head.

It was unnerving to watch.

“Right there,” Sirius said suddenly, and Madame Pomfrey flicked her wand again and it stopped. Sirius was back to his normal length hair, which came down just beyond his cheekbones. 

He smiled happily.

Madame Pomfrey turned to James and examined his skin. 

“Who healed you?” she asked him.

“Remus did,” he answered.

“You did a wonderful job,” she told him

Remus blushed a little bit and looked down at his feet.

“If anything comes back, or something doesn’t fee right, just come back,” Madame Pomfrey told them.

They all nodded and started to leave the room.

Lily fell into step with James automatically, and she spent the walk in silence. The boys did not.

“It seems surprising though, that they’ve got a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw to help them,” Sirius said.

“Well, actually, Prine makes sense, he was just angry about the match earlier today,” James said.

Remus tilted his head to the side. “It doesn’t bode well for the coming years though, if we have so few people joining the Order now, then what is going to happen if You-Know-Who keeps recruiting more people that we thought were on our side. There will be spies and betrayals, and we’ll get cut down really fast.”

“Yeah, well that’s bad, but we’ve already started building trust with a lot of people from different houses through Fyre, and I don’t think those people will betray us,” James said. “And they might,” he allowed, “but we still have to trust them, because if we don’t we won’t be able to trust anyone.”

“We need to build up trust with as many people as possible,” Remus said. “Because when we get involved in this war, that could save our lives.”

“I agree,” Sirius said.

“So basically you want to build a mini Order?” Peter asked.

James nodded. “We have to in order to get to know these people, and we kind of already have with Fyre, we’ll just have to actually up the meetings to twice a week, like Lily has been suggesting for weeks.”

He smiled at her, she managed to smile back.

His smile collapsed into a worried expression.

They reached the Portrait Hole, Remus gave the password and they climbed in. Mary was waiting on the other side.

“What happened?” she asked.

Sirius told her the story and Mary gave Lily a long look.

 James turned on her, and she knew that he was about to ask her a long list of questions that she couldn’t possibly answer at the time, so she backed away and said, “I have to go see Dumbledore.”

She crawled out of the portrait hole and started down the corridor.


	11. Prophecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a secret is revealed.

James slipped out of the portrait hole and started to walk down the corridor. Lily turned around to look at him.

“Don’t follow me,” she said.

He shrugged, just standing there looking at her.

“Seriously, James, don’t.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Lily, if you think I’m going to let you go anywhere alone after what just happened an hour ago, you’re insane and should be committed to St. Mungos.”

Lily glared at him, crossing her arms. “This is none of your business.”

“Well, no offense, Lily, but I’ve put a lot of time into saving you, so I think it is my business if you get killed on the way to the Headmaster’s office just because I wasn’t with you.” James took a step closer.

Her eyes flashed. “You didn’t save me. I was perfectly capable of handling myself, thank you very much.”

“Oh right,” James said, “and this was the time that that Death Eater was dragging you away, or was this an hour ago where you would have been colossally screwed without me. Not even you can fight five people off at once.”

“If it weren’t for me, you would have been a snakes lunch.” She jabbed him in the chest with a finger when she said _you_.

“I think it was more a favor to the snake, I couldn’t have tasted that good with boils all over my skin.” James grinned jauntily at her.

Lily’s eyes darted away from him. James found that very interesting, did she not like the thought of him injured?

“You didn’t save me, I didn’t need your help,” she repeated, carefully staring over to the right of him.

“Well, you have my help,” James said firmly. Honestly, there was no way that he was going to let her go anywhere alone so soon after an attack. 

Because, and he could admit it privately to himself, he hated the thought of her injured or dead. His fingernails dug into his palms at the thought of her motionless form, pale from the lack of pumping blood.

She scowled at him.

They stared at each other for a minute, and James almost stepped forward and took her into his arms and tilted her chin up and ... 

He blinked, tensing his muscles. Eventually something seemed to break, and she turned on her heel and started walking again.

James stared after her for a minute and then caught up to her. 

“So,” he said conversationally.

“So,” Lily replied.

“Why were those people attacking you anyway?” James asked.

She sighed. “None of your business,” she said lightly.

“But it is my business,” he insisted. “I’ve been in several fights because of it.”

She exhaled loudly through her nose.

“James, honestly, you don’t need to protect me. You have your own life to live, and there is no reason for you to get all caught up in this mess because of me.” The expression on her face was worried. 

James found himself slightly satisfied by the idea that she was concerned about him. It gave him some slight hope that she might actually like him in the romantic sense. 

James pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lily, I’m trying to tell you that I’m in this with you, and I’m going to be in this with you no matter what happens, because you may not like me romantically, but we’re still best friends.” A momentary thrill went through him. He had never called them best friends out loud before. “I’m going to be there for you when things like this happen, and you don’t have to tell me what’s going on if you don’t want to, but I would appreciate knowing what I’m dealing with.”

James clenched his hands into fists, waiting anxiously for her answer.

She looked up at him like she was evaluating him. She bit her bottom lip as she tilted her head to look at him.

James started to move towards her with every intention of kissing her until he realized what he was doing. He stopped moving abruptly and stood absolutely still, hoping that she hadn’t realized what he was going to do.

“Fine,” she said finally. She started to walk again.

James hurried after her. This was getting ridiculous, the way he felt the need to touch her at every moment. 

She was speed walking down the hallway and twisting her hands together.

“Are you going to tell me?” James asked when it was clear that she wasn’t preparing to speak.

“When we get to Dumbledore’s office,” Lily said. “Cockroach Clusters,” she declared confidently when they reached the entrance to the Headmaster’s office.

The stairs started to move up and James and Lily stepped onto them.

They were transported up slowly and they were pressed together on one stair so that their arms were touching. James was infinitely aware of every inch that they were touching.

They reached the top and were faced with a wooden door.

Lily raised a fist and rapped smartly on it.

“Come in,” a voice floated out from inside.

James grasped the handle and pushed the door open, letting Lily walk in first. He followed on her heels, looking at an office that he had only ever seen on the Maurader’s Map. 

Dumbledore was sitting behind a massive desk, with his fingers steepled under his chin. The desk itself and the surrounding tables and shelves were filled with odd trinkets and devices that perplexed James.

“Ah, Mr. Potter, I was wondering if you might be joining us,” Dumbledore said with a small smile.

“Ah, were you?” James asked uncertainly.

“Indeed, I did not think it would be long before you pressed Lily for information.” He smiled indulgently at the pair of them.

The Headmaster pulled his wand out from his sleeve and conjured up two chairs in front of his desk, “Please sit.”

James settled into his chair which had a soft cushion at the bottom and a hard back. He shifted uncomfortably. 

A bird that was sitting on a perch next to the desk gave a rather loud squawk, and James looked over at it in surprise. It had magnificent red feathers that were interspersed with lines of gold. 

“This is Fawkes,” Dumbledore said fondly, “A Phoenix is a rather curious creature, even in the realm of magic. It is the only creature that tenaciously rises from it’s own ashes, something that every other creature has difficulty with. I have noticed that people in particular have a difficult time rising when life seems bleak and hopeless.”

Fawkes regarded James with a beady black eye, and James looked away uncomfortably.

Lily shifted in her chair, “Professor,” she started.

Dumbledore looked at her flatly. “I believe I told you to not go anywhere that wasn’t necessary.”

“I thought you meant Hogsmeade and Hagrid’s, not to the library with James. It should have been fine, I didn’t think they were going to attack me.” Lily slumped backwards and crossed her arms defiantly. 

Dumbledore folded his arms onto his desk and looked at James. “Have you told Mr. Potter anything?”

“No.”

“Well, I think after everything that he has been through he deserves to know what is going on. I assume you agree and that is why you brought him here tonight.” Dumbledore’s blue eyes pierced James, and the boy stared back at him.

“He followed me here,” Lily said with an upset tone in her voice.

James scowled at her. “It was for your own good.” He turned back to the Headmaster, “I wasn’t about to let her go anywhere on her own again. Not after Hogsmeade and today.”

Dumbledore’s beard twitched slightly. “Probably wise,” he said eventually.

James smiled triumphantly at Lily. She just frowned back at him.

“Lily, would you like to tell him, or shall I?” Dumbledore asked.

“You can tell him,” Lily said grumpily.

Dumbledore inclined his head towards her and then pressed his fingertips together again and regarded James with a serious look on his face.

“Lily is a very unusual girl with extraordinary talents,” Dumbledore said eventually.

“Apparently,” she said turning to James, “but I haven’t seen any of these talents yet, I’m half convinced that he’s lying.”

“It will come,” Dumbledore said patiently. “To begin with this story we ought to start with a man named Earnest Proctor.”

“He was a terrible person,” Lily interjected.

Dumbledore’s beard twitched again. “He was not known for his moral standards,” he acknowledged. 

“But, he did have certain talents,” she said frowning as if his talents had personally affronted her.

“He was a seer,” Dumbledore said.

James frowned at both of them. “I don’t put much stock into Divination.”

“I didn’t either,” Lily sighed.

“The art of telling the future is an ancient one,” Dumbledore said as he stood up to walk around the office. He picked up some sort of potion that was resting on a shelf. He shook it so that the purple liquid sparkled in it’s small container. “Most witches and wizards today don’t believe in Divination, but it is a craft that has long since proven it’s worth. I myself have fulfilled many prophecies.”

The Headmaster stared wistfully out the window for a moment, remembering the past.

James spoke up nervously, “But aren’t most prophecies self fulfilling anyway?” This was a belief that he had held onto for many years, because he didn’t like the idea of having no control over his future.

Dumbledore glanced over at him. “That is one of many theories, and none of them can be proved. The truth is a delicate thing that few every find. I fear that most live without it.”

James blinked slowly, trying to process what Dumbledore was saying. “What’s so special about Earnest Proctor?” he finally asked.

“Nothing,” Dumbledore said simply. “He was a raving lunatic, but a loud one. He had exactly one prophecy in his entire life that was ever recorded. Most didn’t believe him, but he published a book on it and preached from town to town until he gained a reputation.”

“A reputation that just happened to spawn several cults,” Lily said wearily.

“What kind of cults?” James asked.

“Fanatics join because they think that his prophecy is true, and they’re trying to find the subject of the prophecy and force them to fulfill their destiny.”

“So basically, mad people,” James clarified.

Lily tilted her head to the side. “Essentially, yes.”

“Right, okay, continue.”

Dumbledore took the story up again. “Proctor died in 1920, but the cults, while diminished, still remain.”

“Unfortunately.” Lily muttered.

James looked over at her quickly before turning back to the Headmaster.

“They insist that the prophecy has not come to pass yet, and are still attempting to find the subjects of it to ... help them along.”

Lily shifted in her chair.

“Okay, so what does this have to do with Lily getting attacked?” James asked.

Dumbledore looked over at her and gestured between her and James.

She sighed, turning to him. “Apparently I am the subject of the prophecy,” she said sourly. 

This proclamation was followed by a vast silence.

James glanced between her and the Headmaster. “Okay,” he said flatly.

“And the followers of Voldemort don’t like the implications of that,” Lily continued.

“Why not? What does it have to do with them?”

Dumbledore spoke up from behind the dest. “Voldemort doesn’t want the prophecy to come to pass, so he’s doing everything he can to kill or capture Lily.”

“But why doesn’t he want it to happen? What does it say?

“Essentially it says that I will be bring to pass the destruction of Voldemort,” Lily said it calmly as she folded her hands into her lap.

“I’m sorry?” James asked.

“You heard.”

James stared from her then at Dumbledore and then back to Lily. “You cannot be serious,” he tried.

She looked at him solemnly. “I wouldn’t lie about something this important, James. This is kind of a big deal.”

“This is a very big deal,” James said. “Huge, colossal. No wonder they’re attacking you at every opportunity.” A sort of panic was beginning to build up inside of him. Suddenly the attacks that he had been through took on a new meaning.

He stood up, pacing the length of the room. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked.

Lily frowned at him. “It’s not like I go around telling every one of my friends this, James, it’s a secret that needs to be kept.”

“Yeah, but you could have told _me._ ” he said.

She looked at him flatly. 

He gripped the back of his chair. “Shouldn’t you be in hiding or in Antarctica or something just to be safe?”

She laughed at him. “I don’t think Antarctica would be any safer than here actually.”

“So why aren’t you in hiding though, seriously.” James looked at Dumbledore. “What’s being done for her protection?”

Dumbledore looked at him levelly. “We’re doing everything we can, James.”

“Well, it’s clearly not enough if she’s being attacked at Hogsmeade or in the corridors in school,” James said angrily.

“There is little I can do against attacks that have been unprecedented and are unexpected. We were not expecting Voldemort to use the student body to harm Lily. I thought he might keep his student followers identities a secret in order to use them at a crucial time.” The Headmaster paused. “It seems I was mistaken.”

_Damn right you were,_ James thought angrily, but he didn’t say it out loud. Logic told him that Dumbledore was trying to protect Lily, no matter what had happened earlier today. 

“It’s fine, no one knew that this was going to happen today,” Lily said placatingly. 

She was staring at James with a strange look on her face.

“James, if you don’t mind, I need to talk to Miss Evans alone.” The Headmaster gave James a stare that made him feel like he was transparent.

“What? Oh yeah, that’s fine. I’ll just wait outside.” James stood up and walked over to the door.

He stood on the stairs as they descended slowly and he bit his bottom lip as he thought about what Lily had just told him.

Exactly how was she supposed to defeat the Dark Lord? And how was it that she, of all people, was the subject of the prophecy. Couldn’t it be someone else, anyone else, just so that James didn’t have to worry about her safety? He realized that that was terribly selfish, but to be honest he just didn’t care. He needed her to be safe.

He stepped into the corridor and slid down the wall, resting he forehead on his knees.

This had been a complicated day, and one that was about to get harder, he had no doubt. 

Was this the reason then? Was this why she had said no to him so many times before, expecting that no boy would take the chance to love her when she had a target on her back and a dangerous task to pursue?

James felt like sneaking out of the castle and running through the Forbidden Forest as a stag, to try and forget what confusion felt like.

Because all of this was beyond confusing. 

Maybe she just honestly didn’t like him. Maybe she really did just want to be friends.

But earlier, when he had stepped forward without realizing it, when he was going to kiss her without any thoughts in the way, her eyes had lit up with dim hope. And when he stopped, she had looked away, as if she were disappointed.

Maybe when she stepped out of the Headmaster’s office he would simply push her against the wall and kiss her. His hands would be on her waist and she would push her fingers through his hair and his heart would pound faster than it ever had. She would whisper his name, and pull him closer, and he would respond, as he always did. 

A foot kicked at his ankle.

“James,” Lily said, startling him out of his daydreaming. “Come on,” she held out a hand to help him up.

He took it, wondering what she would do if he pulled her in closer.

He didn’t, of course. He was too afraid of being rejected, and there were more important things to think about at the moment anyway.

“How exactly are you going to be able to defeat You-Know-Who?” James asked.

Lily shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said wearily. “I’m just trying to survive until Christmas break, where I can go home and not worry about being attacked, and not do any essays.”

James stopped walking and pulled on her arm, reeling her in. He didn’t kiss her, he was too much of a coward for that. But he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

She pressed her face into his chest and hugged back tightly.

They stood like that for a very long time, longer than was necessary. When she finally loosened her grip slightly, James stepped back from her, looking down into her eyes.

She sniffled a little bit and wiped at her eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay,” James said, slightly alarmed. He was vastly unprepared to deal with a crying girl and he had no idea how to handle it.

“Yeah, I know, it’s fine,” she said thickly. “There are just people trying to kill me and the outcome of the current war is resting on my shoulders. It’s fine.”

James felt a bit stupid after that. “Okay, so maybe it’s not fine. Maybe life sucks.”

She laughed a little bit at that, which made James feel good.

“I’ll be alright, you don’t have to worry about me,” she said as she patted his shoulder.

Was the gesture automatic or just an excuse to touch him again? James was going to go crazy trying to guess everything that she was thinking.

“I always worry about you,” James said without thinking about it, and she looked up at him surprised. 

He looked back at her, thinking that this time his body was moving towards her and he wasn’t going to stop it.

His hand slid behind her head and he started to lean in.

The very tip of her nose brushed against his cheek, and they were breathing the same air.

Lily gasped just a little bit and stepped away suddenly.

James let his hand drop from midair, feeling like something infinitely precious was just ripped from him.

“I can’t do this,” she said. 

“Why not?” 

She was shaking her head, and even now, James could appreciate the way her hair bounced. It was mad, that with everything that happened, with the conversation that was happening that he could still appreciate her beauty. 

“I’m not- I just can’t!” she half shouted at him.

She was really crying now, and that started an ache somewhere deep inside his chest. It hurt the way he expected a slow poison would. 

He stepped towards her, holding his hands out and she backed up again.

“Lily,” he said, exasperated.

“James,” she responded, glaring at him.

“Come here,” he said firmly.

“No.”

He let his arms drop. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you, I’ll just give you a hug.” He stood still, letting her come to him.

For an awful moment, he thought that she was just going to run away and leave him there.

Then she stepped forward, slipping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek on his chest.

Cautiously he raised his hands and slid his fingers into her hair. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head. 

“I could be killed any day, James. I can’t have a relationship, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not? You haven’t been killed yet, and Hogwarts is the safest place for you.”

Lily sighed and stepped away from him again. “Right, because that was just proved today.”

James waved his hand. “One time, that’s all it was. And they’ll never even try it again. Dumbledore will make sure of it.”

“But I’m going to graduate, and go home for breaks, and they’re going to get me at some point, and I don’t want to put someone through the pain of losing me if they don’t have to.”

“I’ll already have that pain, Lily.” James argued, and she avoided looking at his face again. “If you die, it will hurt like hell. I am already affected by you, you are already in my life, so why can’t we just be together?”

He threw his hands up in the air, praying that she would see his sense and just _give in._

“We can’t,” she said desperately. “We just can’t, James. It would never work.”

“Why not?” he yelled. “Why wouldn’t it work? You keep saying this over and over and over, but why wouldn’t it work Lily? How would you know if you didn’t try?”

“We can’t even try,” she said quietly. “We can’t even be any better friends that we are right now, we can’t ever be together.”

“Why not?” He said it quietly and he could see how the words tore at her. He wanted so badly to be with her, and she wanted so badly to give that to him, and her resolve was crumbling.

“Because they would kill you,” she said as she slumped against the wall. “They would torture you and hold you captive and they would hurt you and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I would comply with every demand they asked of me, and then they would kill me and make you watch. They would force you to watch as they tortured me, just to see how upset you would become, and then they would kill me, and then they would kill you. And I can’t let that happen.”

She looked up at him through her red hair that was obscuring her face. 

“I can’t lose you,” she said firmly.

A wave of emotion cascaded through James, but he wasn’t sure what it was. 

Relief because she did love him. 

Despair because she would never be with him.

Love because, as selfish as it was, he loved that she loved him.

“We should go,” Lily said quietly. And she pulled herself off of the wall and began to walk back to Gryffindor Tower. 

James followed behind. 

They reached the portrait hole without saying another word.

Lily gave the password and the frame swung forward. James caught her arm before she went in.

“We’ll do it your way for now,” he said with a bit of a smile. “But I have to warn you, I plan on wearing you down to the point where you beg me to go out with you.”

Lily looked up at him, and with the warm light of the common room shining on half of her face, James thought that she had never looked more beautiful.

“Challenge accepted,” she said with a slight grin.

*   *   *

The next day was bright and cold. Sundays were always quiet around the castle. James found himself waking up several times during the night, until finally he just gave in at dawn and rolled out of bed to get up. 

He padded down to the common room and curled up in one of the armchairs beside the fire. 

He cracked open _Quidditch through the Ages_ and began to read. He should be working on essays or studying for Transfiguration, he was still rubbish at conjuring spells, but he honestly couldn’t even bring himself to care about that.

He just wanted to go back to normal.

He wanted Voldemort to be nonexistent, and he wanted Lily to be a normal teenage girl, and he wanted to only have to worry about pranks and schoolwork. 

He didn’t want to worry that his parents might be killed any day, leaving him by himself.

He didn’t want to worry that Lily might be attacked again at any moment.

He didn’t want to worry that Peter was going to be permanently injured over break, and he didn’t want to worry that Remus was going to kill someone every full moon.

He was unsure how he had landed in this life with so much danger and so many uncertainties, but at the moment he resented it strongly. 

The words on the page were floating up off of the page and mixing up in his brain so that they didn’t make any sense.

There were footsteps on the stairs.

Wormtail appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey Prongs,” he yawned. “What are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he muttered. “What about you?”

Wormtail padded over to the chair that was next to James’s. He collapsed into it and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Me neither.” He was quiet for a moment, then suddenly said, “Can’t stop thinking about next week.”

“Are you going home for holidays?” James asked.

Wormtail nodded. “Yeah.”

James fell silent, thinking about that. He could just imagine the bruises that were going to be spread across Peter’s chest when he got back, and the bones that would be cracked and broken underneath his black and blue skin.

“Why do you keep going back?” James asked.

Wormtail shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.” He stared into the fire, the reflection of the flames dancing in his pupils. 

“You could stay at Hogwarts over breaks and ask Dumbledore if you could stay for summer. I’m sure if you just explained . . .”

Wormtail was shaking his head. “He’s my father,” he said as if that explained everything. 

“Peter, you don’t have to put up with this, you aren’t his punching bag, you’re a person who deserves to be treated better.” James sat up in his chair.

Peter stared at him.

“Why don’t you come home with me and Sirius over Christmas?” James said impulsively. 

Peter cocked his head to the side, thinking. 

“Okay,” he said finally.

“Okay,” James said back in his chair again, thinking that he should write his parents to make sure that they were okay with that. 

James stared at his book again.

His life was complicated and he had a lot of things to worry about, but at least he had family that loved him.

At least he didn’t go home to an abusive father every break and think that was normal. 

At least his parents talked to him.

At least he had a home to go home to.

And he was infinitely grateful for that.

  



	12. The Prank

“She shouldn’t go alone,” Mary said quietly and started to stand up.

Sirius caught her arm gently and maneuvered her back into her seat. “James is going,” he answered just as quietly so as to not let their friends hear.

Mary bit her lip as she watched them leave and Sirius watched her with increasing fondness. 

There was something about Mary that made him crazy, and he had yet to find out exactly what that was, but not for a lack of trying.

“How long do you think it will take them?” she asked, and he jolted back to the present conversation.

“James and Lily?” He asked. 

She nodded.

He shrugged. “I mean, it’s not James’s fault, he’s been trying to get her to go out with him for ages.”

“I know, I don’t know what her problem is,” Mary said to him. “I’ve been trying to bring it up for the past couple of weeks, but she dodges the question every time.”

“Maybe we should help them along,” Sirius suggested with a bit of a wicked smile.

Mary looked at him seriously. 

“If we don’t they may be stuck in this endless state of longing for each other for eternity, never knowing how it feels to be with one another and then they’ll die alone and still pining for each other.” Sirius snuck an arm around Mary’s waist. “It would tragic.”

“We can’t let our best friends end up like that,” Mary deadpanned.

“Of course not,” Sirius assured her. “We just need to nudge them along a little bit.”

“How do you propose we do that?” 

“Awkwardly leave them alone in rooms, make innuendoes where none belong, things like that.”

Mary laughed, which gave Sirius a glowing sort of pleasure. 

“I don’t think that would actually help them along.”

Sirius shrugged. “You’re the girl, and Lily is the one that’s dragging her feet, so I guess this is mostly on you anyway.”

Mary looked down at her feet with her eyebrows furrowed.

“I’ll draw up some battle plans,” she said absently.

“Wormtail, she seems to talk to you a lot,” Sirius said, raising his voice a little bit. “Why do you think lily won’t get together with James?”

Wormtail looked a little gratified that he was being asked an opinion. He shrugged after a moment, looking at Remus who was sitting on the floor with him. 

“I don’t know. We don’t talk about things like that.” He muttered.

“Well, give us your opinion, it doesn’t have to contain direct quotes,” Sirius said mockingly.

“Maybe she doesn’t like him?”

“That’s not it,” Remus said, jumping into the conversation. 

The other three looked at him in surprise. 

“Well, have you seen them together?” Remus asked. “I mean every gesture flirts, if they’re not together by now it’s not because they don’t like each other.”

“Okay, so it’s something else,” Sirius said.

“Genius deduction,” Mary poked him in the side.

He gave her a hurt look.

She laughed at him again. 

“You have to figure out why she doesn’t like him,” Sirius pointed at her. “Or rather, why she won’t date him.”

“What will you three do to encourage this endeavor then? I don’t want to have to do all the work myself.”

“We will engineer moments in time where they are left alone together,” Sirius grinned. 

“Okay, but making them spend time together isn’t going to be the way to get them together,” Mary said.

“It’ll help,” Sirius tilted his head.

“Yes, but that’s not going to be enough. Lily is stubborn, the only way she’s going to do this is if she thinks that it’s her idea. We have to be subtle. We have to _be_ stealth, we can’t just all get up and leave a room to leave them alone. We have mess with their minds and make sure that they don’t even know what we’re doing.”

“You make it sound like war,” Remus said, smiling.

“Isn’t it?” she asked. “If we stop living our lives then doesn’t that mean You-Know-Who has won already?”

“Yeah, but James and Lily might still not be together whether or not You-Know-Who was out there.”

“I suppose you’re right, James is a bit of a prick,” Mary mused.

“And Lily’s as stubborn as me,” Sirius said with a hint of pride. 

“Not a good thing, Sirius,” Mary murmured. “Not in this case.”

He scowled at her.

They all sat in silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire. Remus was playing with a quill, staring at the wall and Wormtail was starting to fall asleep.

Suddenly the portrait hole opened and the rumble of James’s voice came through and Lily answered.

They scrambled into the common room and sauntered over to collapse in the circle. 

“How was it?” Mary asked.

“Enlightening,” James said after a pause.

Lily gave him a worried glance, but Sirius jumped in before anyone else could say anything.

“Right, down to business,” he said briskly.

“What business?” Lily pulled her shirt down and shifted to lean against James a little bit. 

“Pranking, of course,” James said. “We had a meeting planned for tonight.”

“Remus, do you really let this stand?” Lily asked him, and he shrugged while he continues to stare at the wall. She sighed. “I think I should just go to bed.”

“No,” Sirius said. “We need you. You are a vital part of this plan. It would ll come crumbling down without your help.” He held eye contact with her, hoping that she would stay.

She settled back into her previous position again, “Fine. But seriously, I reserve the right to back out of this at anytime.”

“Noted,” he responded.

“So, what’s the plan?” Wormtail asked through a yawn.

“Well, I had an elaborate prank planned for breakfast on Tuesday morning that would have had the House Elves cleaning all day. But that will have to wait.”

Sirius pressed his fingers together underneath his chin and surveyed his troops.

James was lounging on the carpet, leaning against the side of an armchair. Lily sat next to him, with a disapproving look on her face and her prefect badge gleaming on her chest. Wormtail was sitting above them in his armchair with his feet ticked up underneath him. His eyes were darting around nervously. Remus sat in the chair next to him, with another prefect badge on his chest, it was slightly scuffed and had lost it’s shine. He kept looking for someone- Astrid, Sirius assumes- to commiserate with. Mary sat next to Sirius, sprawled out on the sofa with her head in his lap. Her eyes gleamed in the firelight as she stared up at him.

“Given recent events,” Sirius continued, “I’ve decided to discard my previous plan and construct another one. This calls for something bigger and better.”

“He get’s very professional when planning a prank,” Mary announced to no one in particular.

“Well to be fair, it is his life’s work,” James responded.

“He started in our first year,” Wormtail piped up from his perch.

“Ah, yes, the pixies,” James said with a faraway look in his eyes.

Sirius remembered the pixies quite well. It was rudimentary work at best, but still, there was that hint of genius behind it, a promise of the pranks to come.

Lily looked up sharply. “That was you?” she asked Sirius.

“Well, us,” he said modestly, indicating the rest of the Marauders. 

“But it was his idea,” Remus said, trying to absolve himself of all his guilt. 

“He had that prank planned down the the second,” James said, grinning. “It was a thing of beauty.”

“I couldn’t finish my charms exam because of that,” LIly said with a bitter tone. “I only got a ninety-two percent on it.”

“His planning is an inspiration to us all,” Wormtail said.

“Stop, I’m blushing,” Sirius waved their comments away with his hand.

Mary sat up, turning to face him with her legs crossed. She twisted her necklace around her neck with her gingers.

Sirius watched as the light from the fire glinted off of the metal as he started to outline his plan.

“If we pull this off, it will go down in history,” he said slowly. “It will be the best prank we have ever pulled off.”

James sat up straighter, giving Sirius his full attention.

“I’ve decided that we need to retaliate against the Slytherins.”

“How?” James’s eyes were alight with curiosity and excitement.

“Why?” Lily asked at the same time.

“They attacked you and James,” Sirius said. “We don’t let two of our own get attacked and not do anything about it. We don’t let that stand.”

Lily looked a little flattered that he considered her part of the group.

But it was only right, Sirius thought. She, Mary and Astrid had all been adopted into the circle that used to be just the four boys, and if someone attacked one of them, they attacked them all, that had always been the rule.

“Plus, they’re our rival house which is an added bonus. And while Slytherins is our main focus, we also have a secondary target as well.”

“Who is it?” Remus sounded resigned to the fact that he was being pulled into the plan.

Sirius looked at him flatly. “Ravenclaw,” he responded. “But we’re doing very different things to each house.”

“Not against Hufflepuff?” Mary asked.

Sirius shook his head. “They weren’t part of the attack, and they turn out the smallest number of Dark Wizards out of all the four houses.”

“What do Dark Wizards have to do with it?” Peter asked.

“Everything, Peter, everything.”

 

Astrid paced back in forth in front of the Dining Hall. “I’m not okay with this,” she muttered.

Remus put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Why did you drag me into this?” She hissed at him. “Seriously, this is not okay, I’m going to be an accomplice, I’m going to to get detention!”

“Astrid,” Remus looked her in the eye. “Do you want to back out? Because you can, you have,” he looked at his watch, “a whole ten seconds to decide if you want to back out or not.”

She looked up at him. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do it.”

Astrid turned on her heel and walked into the dining hall. Remus took a deep breath and followed afterward.

 

“Stop laughing!” Lily hissed.

James’s whole body was shaking. “I can’t,” he said between giggles. “Wormtail was practicing cheering charms this morning and he hit me with a particularly strong one.” He lapsed into giggles again.

It made Lily want to laugh too, to see him like this, but they had a mission, and she couldn’t start laughing or she wouldn’t stop.

“Who practices Cheering Charms before breakfast?” Lily said.

“Sometimes-” James chuckled, “We do them before pranks so that we-” he bent in half to laugh- “don’t get too nervous.”

James clutched at her arm as he lost his balance from laughing too hard. Lily stumbled on the steps and then straightened up and continued on.

“Get a hold of yourself,” she whispered to him.

His high pitched peal of laughter made her tense, wondering if anyone else was in the vicinity of them.

She paused on the steps and then pulled her wand out. “I’m sorry,” she told him.

His eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously.

“ _Silencio,_ ” she whispered. 

He stopped mid giggle with a comical look of shock on his face. James opened his mouth to say something, and no sound at all came out. He clutched at his throat.

That did make Lily laugh, but she did it quietly and then continued to creep up the stairs.

They reached the top of the tower and she knocked on the doorknob. 

“Where do conjured objects come from?” A cool voice asked.

Lily looked over at James, who was looking back, pointing at her face with an open mouth, laughing silently, because he couldn’t stop. She bit her lip, trying to reason it out.

James’s shoulders were shaking, it was distracting Lily.

“Ummm, from unexistence, or nothing?” she asked with a scared look, she turned her face and angled her body away from the door as if it were going to explode.

The silence for the next few moments were deafening.

“Well thought,” the voice finally answered, and the door swung open.

James and Lily stumbled through.

They were in.

 

A hand clamped around Sirius’s arm and pulled him back into an alcove. He sucked his breath in and held it as three Slytherin students walked past. He was hyperaware of everything, which meant that he knew exactly where the three sets of footsteps were and he could hear every rustle of cloth and he could feel Mary pressed up against his back.

“Severus is getting on my nerves,” one of them said.

“Who cares about Severus? Lucius is the one we should worry about. He might kill us in our sleep if we don’t do what he says,” another answered.

“I hope he doesn’t come back anytime soon,” the first answered with a nervous quaver in his voice.

“He’s going to come back next week I think,” A third voice said.

“He’s going to kill us all . . . .” the voices faded around the corner and Sirius and Mary fell out of the alcove sucking in huge breaths of air.

“Thanks,” he told her.

She nodded, waving her hand to dismiss the word.

Sirius jerked his head down the hall again and they started to creep down passageway. Sirius reached back to take Mary’s hand.

That calmed him somewhat. His heart was pounding so hard he was sure that every Slytherin in the castle could hear it and understand what they were about to do. 

He pulled his watch out of his robes. They were right on time.

What if there were some people in the common room? What if they were caught? What if he and Mary were captured by want-to-be-Death-Eaters and were tortured and eventually killed?

Looking back on it, this prank may not have been the smartest idea he had ever thought of.

Sirius pulled the Marauder’s Map out of his pocket. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” he whispered, and the ink unfurled onto the page. He shifted it so that he could see the dungeons. 

There was no one in the Slytherin common room and there was no one in the corridors anymore. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned to nod to Mary.

“We’re clear,” he said.

She smiled back. “Good, because I can’t do another scare like that again.”

He looked up at the Ravenclaw Tower, Lily and James were standing just outside the door, as he looked he saw them walk in. 

Wormtail was standing in the Great Hall, on guard to stop any teachers from leaving and Remus and Astrid had just walked in to cause the distraction at breakfast.

Everything was going according to plan.

“Stop here,” Sirius said suddenly, and he and Mary turned to face a blank stretch of wall.

“ _Avada Kedavra,_ ” Sirius said with a grim look on his face, and the bricks slid aside to reveal the Slytherin common room. It was underneath the lake, so green light came in from the opposite side of the room and couches and armchairs crowded around the fire and little tables.

“Well,” Sirius said, looking over at Mary. “Let’s get started.”

 

Quimbley was having a perfectly normal day. He woke up at the normal time and crawled out of bed to pull on his clothes with his brain still half off.

He went down to breakfast without saying a word, which was normal. He was a strong believer that no one should say anything until they had been awake for an hour, it helped minimize bad moods and sounding stupid. 

The rest of the world did not share this view, which was something that he found grievously unfortunate. 

For example, the girls that were sitting next to him definitely didn’t share this view, as they were already talking about gossip.

The girl named Laura sighed. “The two hottest boys in school have been claimed, I find this to be unequivocally tragic.”

“I know, right?” her friend, June answered. “It’s like, the tragedy of the year. When I heard that Mary was going out with Sirius, I couldn’t even believe it. I mean, seriously, he could do so much better than her. Her nose is crooked at the end.” She said the last sentence like it was a fatal flaw, like Mary’s nose was the equivalent to the iceberg to the Titanic. 

“I totally noticed that the other day!” Semartia said looking up from her plate which contained the least amount of food Quimbley had ever seen anyone eat for breakfast.

“Right?” Laura said. “Although, I guess Lily is a good match for Potter, I mean he’s only been chasing after her for five years.”

Semartia sighed with a hand to her chest. “It’s so romantic, the way he kept chasing after her. I hope they have a happy ending.”

“I don’t,” June said bluntly, “otherwise I have no chance with him, which is something that I would find ‘unequivocally tragic.’”

Laura laughed.

Quimbley sighed moodily, shoving eggs into his mouth, what he wouldn’t give to cast silencing charms on the lot of them, but that would probably land him in detention. 

Laura reached up to touch her face, which was breaking out into boils. A girl- that was Remus’s girlfriend, wasn’t it?- passed by, winking at him.

June was next and then Semartia. 

Their faces were turning red and the skin was swelling and protruding awkwardly, making their model-like faces stretch out to strange proportions.

Quimbley watched impassively. He wanted to laugh very badly, but that would have been terribly rude, and no matter how much he disliked these girls, he couldn’t be that rude to them.

Several other people were breaking out into hives at the table, and a couple sprouted tentacles from their faces.

Teachers started to make their way down to the students, trying to help them sort out the curses and jinxes, but more people kept getting affected, and the teachers simply couldn’t keep up.

Cornelia Green started to cry, reaching up to feel her distorted face.

Quimbely got off the bench to go over to her, and put an arm around her, “It’s going to be okay, Cornelia,” he said soothingly, and she covered her face with her hands.

She peered up at him through her fingers. “You’ve, uh-” she hiccuped. “You’ve got something on your forehead,” she said.

Quimbley reached up to find a red plant-like feeler protruding there. 

“Well, mine’s much worse than yours,” he told her kindly and she laughed.

Wormtail was hovering outside the dining hall, wringing his hands and hopping from foot to foot.

He hated this job, he was the worst at distracting people, what was he supposed to do?

Professor McGonagall rushed out into the Great Hall and spied Wormtail hovering there.

He stepped forward, “Professor! I have a question for you,” he smiled up at her, trying to imitate the way James smiled, confidently so that people weren’t suspicious of him.

Evidently it didn’t work because she narrowed her eyes at him. 

“Peter, what are they doing?”

“Who, Professor?” He asked innocently.

“Potter and Black,” she snapped. “This is clearly a distraction, where are they and what are they doing?”

“They’re- they’re at breakfast, Professor,” Wormtail said weakly.

“They most certainly are not!” she cried.

“Look,” he pointed over at the Gryffindor table where it looked like James and Sirius were laughing at each other’s faces. 

McGonagall narrowed her eyes at him again. 

“Very well,” she said crisply, but if there is any more funny business, I know who I am suspecting.”

“Right, Professor,” Wormtail said with a nod, “but I don’t think there will be any funny business.”

She walked back into the dining hall.

Lily worked faster than she ever had in her life, trying to complete their mission before the deadline. James was almost no help at all, because he was still silently shaking with laughter.

“You are so useless!” she hissed at him.

He raised his hands to show his helplessness, and she scowled at him.

There were footsteps on the stairs and James and Lily froze in their places.

Xenophillus Lovegood emerged at the bottom of the staircase, with a necklace of flowers around his neck and bare feet peeking out from underneath his robes. 

“Hello,” he said pleasantly. He pushed his long blond hair back behind his shoulder and smiled at them. 

“Hello,” Lily said back cautiously.

“Do you need any help?” he asked with a pleasant smile. 

Lily looked at James with a panicked expression. It seemed that the cheering charm had worn off somewhat because he wasn’t laughing anymore. 

“Sure,” Lily said cautiously.

He walked over and picked up some of the flyers. “I like this design,” he said, “who did it?”

“I did,” Lily said.

“Maybe you would work with me on the magazine I’m starting. It’s dedicated to telling the truth about the Ministry. Do you know the kinds of things they don’t report?” Xenophillius put one of the flyers up on the wall. 

“I didn’t know that the Daily Prophet was so unreliable,” Lily said with an amused smile.

“Oh, it is,” he assured her. “I mean, the kinds of things that the Minister is up to lately, it’s remarkable how much goes unreported. Just last week, he had a house elf killed for bringing him the wrong kind of tea, and the week before that he had You-Know-Who right in his office and he didn’t even try to arrest him!”

“Is that so?” Lily said, and Xeonphillius nodded enthusiastically.

“It’s true, I want to get the truth out to the people, you know? I think the public has a right to know what goes on with the government.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Lily said. She looked over at James, who moved his finger in a circle next to his head. She frowned at him.

“I just hope that people will read it once I start publishing,” he said.

“I’m sure they will,” Lily assured him. “It sounds like a very respectably newspaper.”

“It’s a magazine,” Xenophillius corrected absently as he stuck some flyers on the wall.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” she aplogized.

“It’s quite alright,” Xenophillius said with a vacant expression on his face.

 

“Hello James,” a girl said as she walked past Astrid.

“Hello,” she said back, trying not to look surprised at the deep voice that was coming out of her mouth.

Sirius was walking next to her, well, it looked like Sirius, but it wasn’t.

“Come on,” the Sirius-looking-thing said, grabbing her arm-James’s arm- and pulling her into a side classroom.

“It’s about to wear off,” he said.

“Thank goodness,” Astrid said, “I don’t ever want to do this again. Ever. I refuse to take Polyjuice potion ever again, especially if I have to change into James. It’s terrible.”

Before her, Sirius shrunk a bit and his hair started to shrink into his head again and turned brown instead of black. He face shifter around a bit and his nose became shorter and his eyes turned blue and then Remus was standing in front of her.

A second later she shrank a foot and then her frams started to pull inwards, returning her to her petite figure, and her hair grew out and turned blonde.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, reveling in the fact that it was her own voice that she could hear now. 

“I like you much better this way,” Remus said, sliding his hands around her waist.

“Me too,” she agreed fervently.

He kissed her quickly and then pulled her out of the classroom and along the corridor. They made their way to the fourth floor in a corner of the castle.

Sirius and Mary arrived first, looking flushed and triumphant. They had just started to tell their story when Wormtail ran up, flashing a grin at them, and then James and Lily showed up as well.

“Please, don’t ever silence me again,” James was saying.

“I had to, you would have told the whole castle that we were there!” she argued back.

“Were you successful?” Sirius asked them.

They nodded, “Xenophillius Lovegood caught us though,” James said.

Sirius’s face drained of color. “What did he do?” he asked.

“He helped,” Lily said, with a laugh. “I guess he approved of our agenda.”

“Okay,” Sirius said, looking somewhat relieved. “Well, we were successful as well, the Slytherins should be getting a nasty shock right about now. And how did you three do?”

“McGonagall is suspicious of us, but I think the polyjuice potion threw her off enough,” Wormtail said. 

“Okay good.”

“The jixing went fine, but I am never, ever, never ever ever taking polyjuice potion again,” Astrid said vehemently. “That was the most uncomfortable experience in my life.” She looked at James. “No offense.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “None taken?”

“So, we were successful then? Everything went according to plan?” Sirius asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Alright, time to make it look like it wasn’t us now,” he said. 

“Let’s split and make our way to our classes, and remember to not say a word about this, but if someone else brings it up, then participate in the conversation.” He looked around at all of them seriously. “Don’t blow it.”

They all nodded, and then went their separate ways.

  



	13. The Aftermath

James made his way through the corridors to get into Transfiguration. The corridors were packed with people, and the word about the prank hadn’t gotten around yet, there were just bare trickles leaking through.

“I heard that it was just a ploy to get into all the common rooms.”

“I think it was something in the food, it must have been those house elves, I never did trust them.”

Severus appeared out of the crowd of students. 

James stopped walking abruptly as the Slytherin blocked his path. James assumed an expression of tranquility and stared back at him.

Severus’s greasy hair was hanging in strings around his face, and his usual black robes looked somehow more dismal than usual.

“I know it was you,” he hissed.

“To what are you referring?” James asked. His arms were folded around his textbooks so that his fingers were wrapped around his wand which was hidden in his sleeve.

He didn’t think Severus would actually attack, but there was always the possibility.

“I swear on Merlin’s ghost, you will pay for this,” Severus spat.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” James said firmly and pushed passed him.

“She doesn’t love you,” Snape called after him.

James paused for just a moment. 

The things he would love to do to him. He was a better wizard than Snape, he was certain, he could beat him in a duel. And then, the things he could do to him. 

Lily would be irritated. More than irritated actually, she found it extremely aggravating when he got into fights.

He pushed on through the students and made his way to Transfiguration. 

James slid into his seat in between Remus and Lily. 

“And how are we all doing on this fine day?” He asked. He pulled his wand out of his sleeve and his textbook out of his bag.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” Lily observed.

“What can I say? Having my face blown up into weird shapes does that to a man,” he joked.

Remus snorted, and James smiled.

“Honestly,” James said in an undertone. “Is Astrid scarred from life for this morning?”

“Astrid?” Remus asked. “What about me? Seriously, I think I might never get the image of her turning into you out of my mind.” He shuddered. “It was truly horrifying.”

James scowled at him.

“I would be emotionally traumatized if I had to turn into you, so I imagine she’ll be having nightmares about it for months, if not years,” Lily said.

“Oh yes, you are all so very funny,” James said flatly as he flipped open his book.

Professor McGonagall stood up at the head of the classroom. 

“I know that we have all had an eventful morning, but please, try to focus on the conjuring charm that we will be working on today. We’re trying to conjure mice, mammals are harder than inanimate objects and reptiles; it may take you a few tries.”

She walked down the aisle, watching as students tried to master the spell. It didn’t help that they were supposed to be trying to do it nonverbally.

James held the incantation for the spell in his mind and gripped the end of his wand tightly. A light shot out of the end of his wand and a wiggling mouse tail appeared out of mid air. 

Lily lapsed into giggles. 

Remus gave him an amused smile.

James blushed slightly, but then brightened at the prospect that he was the only one who had made anything appear. 

Next to him, a mouse suddenly appeared in front of Lily. She gave him a wicked smile.

He scowled at her and concentrated again, and he was rewarded by his own mouse appearing in front of him. 

“Well done, Miss Evans, Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall said as she passed by their table. “Ten points to Gryffindor.”

She held James’s gaze for a moment longer than was necessary, as if she were examining him for some sort of information.

“Thank you, Professor,” he smiled winningly at her.

She turned her nose up slightly and continued on. 

“She suspects us,” Lily whispered to him. 

“She would be stupid not to,” he said in an undertone back. “I would suspect me if I didn’t know exactly what happened this morning.”

Remus leaned around him, “McGonagall suspects him and Sirius for every wrong doing that ever goes on in the castle.”

“And most of the time she’s right,” Lily whispered back.

“Right,” James said with a grin. He waved his wand to vanish the mice they had conjured.

The classroom door opened. Filch staggered in, the man who had just started as a custodian, and general nuisance this year at Hogwarts. He was young, maybe eighteen, and he hated the students with a bitter passion.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said to Professor McGonagall, who looked back with faintly disgusted look on her face. “I’m to bring Mr. Potter to Dumbledore.” 

Filch leered at James, who looked at Lily with his eyebrows raised and leaned down to pick up his bag.

“Good luck,” she whispered.

“Don’t cave,” Remus whispered from his other side. 

He smirked at both of them, and walked out of the classroom behind Filch.

“You’re in trouble now,” the older man cackled.

Dumbledore’s office looked the same as it had a couple of days previously, except there was a long haired boy sitting in a chair in front of the desk.

“Hello, Padfoot,” James greeted, sitting in the chair next to him. “What are we in for?”

“The Headmaster refuses to say,” Sirius said, gesturing at Dumbledore who was watching them from behind his desk.

“I’ll bet it has something to do with the fiasco at breakfast,” James said to him.

“That’s what I thought as well,” Sirius answered. “But that was clearly not our fault because we were affected too.”

James tilted his head to the side. “Although, that would be the perfect disguise.”

“Maybe for you, but there’s no way I would mess up this beautiful face,” Sirius said, stroking his chin with his left hand.

“Well, the world would be lacking if you did.”

“So, is this about breakfast?” Sirius asked, turning to Dumbledore. 

“We believe the incident at breakfast was a distraction,” Dumbledore said seriously, looking first at James and then at Sirius.

“A distraction?” James asked, his heart pounding in his ears and very aware of how he was sitting and how he was speaking and where his eyes were looking. He felt like every part of his body screamed, _LIE! LIE! LIE!_ “For what?”

“The Slytherin and the Ravenclaw common rooms were invaded.”

Sirius leaned forward eagerly, “What did they do?” he asked.

The Headmaster reached for a piece of parchment on his desk and handed it to Sirius, “This papered the walls of the Ravenclaw common room.”

James leaned over to look at it, trying to pretend that this was the first time he’d seen it.

 

WAR IS COMING

Voldemort is getting stronger by the day

and the time to choose a side is now

Prepare to join the Order of the Phoenix today

 

At the bottom there was a very good drawing of a Phoenix, which had been drawn and enchanted to move by Lily, it was flying across the bottom of the page.

“Why would someone put these all over the Ravenclaw common room?” James asked curiously.

“I assume because, besides Slytherin, Ravenclaws have the highest number of Dark Wizards come out of their house.”

“Well, I can’t imagine that you’d be too upset about this,” Sirius said, “I mean, they are advertising your organization.”

“True,” Dumbledore inclined his head, “I’m much more concerned about how these people got into Ravenclaw tower, and what they did to the Slytherin common room.”

“Maybe they were Ravenclaws,” James offered.

“I doubt it,” Dumbledore said. “I think that if they were going to do this then they would have also done the Gryffindor common room, since Gryffindors also come out with a good number of Dark Wizards, and so I concluded that the offenders were Gryffindor’s themselves. Especially considering the...” He paused delicately, “current state of the Slytherin common room.”

James fought hard to keep a smile off of his face, he didn’t dare even look at Sirius.

The Headmaster looked betwen the two of them, “Which led me to you two.”

“Because we’re the most likely, given our most extensive background of pranking,” James said in a bored voice.

Dumbledore nodded gracefully.

“Well, there’s just one problem with that,” James said, looking to Sirius. 

“Yes there is,” his friend agreed. “You see, we were at breakfast. There were eye-witnesses.”

The Headmaster’s beard twitched. It was getting quite long by now, it was almost six inched below his chin.

“Ingredients for polyjuice potion were also stolen at the beginning of the year,” Dumbledore said.

Sirius stiffened, just slightly, but James could see it.

_Stop it!_ he wanted to scream. They were giving it all away. He shifted self-consciously in his chair.

“We could never brew that. It’s much too complicated,” James lied quickly.

“And, bottom line, you have no proof,” Sirius jumped back in.

James blinked slowly, hoping so hard he felt like he would will the outcome he wanted into existing.

Dumbledore looked back and forth between them again. 

James resisted biting his lip out of tension. They had pushed it too far, he knew. He knew it was them.

“Very well, you may go,” Dumbledore said eventually, and James jumped up out of his chair, eager to get out of this office.

Sirius followed him, and just before the door he stopped and turned around, “Just out of curiosity, what did they do to the Slytherin common room?”

The Headmaster looked up, “They turned all the furniture red and hung up Gryffindor banners with permanent sticking charms.”

Sirius laughed, and James could have sworn he saw Dumbledore’s beard twitch with amusement before he left the office. 

James clambered into the common room, his eyes unerringly finding Lily sitting near the fire with a scroll of parchment in her hand. He walked over.

“So, how did it go?” Lily asked with a smile and James sat down on the sofa next to her in front of the fire.

He looked around the common room, which was unusually quiet for the week before break. 

“It was fine, he’s got no proof,” James said.

Lily nodded distractedly, leaning over her essay again. James peeked over to see she was working on something for potions again.

He shook his head, thinking of the work that he needed to do for his classes. He had so much work to do that he simply decided to not do any of it. 

Lily sniffed delicately, her nose wrinkling up. James watched on fondly. It was a strange thing, being in love. Everything she did made him smile, he found every action endearing. 

She glanced over. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“Sorry?”

“You’re staring at me.”

“Am I not allowed to do that?” James asked. His heart pounded a little bit as he waited for her answer.

“No,” she said, turning back to her essay. 

The light from the fire bounced off of her cheekbones. It made her look like someone from the old fairy tales, someone who could conquer Death himself or subdue Dark Magic.

He settled back against the couch. “So I’ve been thinking,” he said casually.

“Always dangerous,” she muttered.

He gave the obligatory smirk and continued, “What exactly does this prophecy of yours say?” he asked.

She gave him a sharp look. “Keep your voice down,” she muttered. “No one even knows about that.”

“Sorry,” he said impatiently. “But honestly, what does it say?”

“It says that I will ‘bring the power to defeat the one they call the Dark Lord.’” She pushed her hair back behind her ear self-consciously.

“And what else?”

She bit her lip, thinking. “Well, it says that I have a partner,” she admitted. “But we don’t know who that is yet. We’re trying to figure it out, but we’ve had no luck yet.”

“Okay, well does it give any clues about who the partner is?” James asked eagerly.

She shook her head. “All it says is that it’s an orphan,” she said sadly.

“Oh,” James slumped back onto the couch. He was disappointed, he had been secretly hoping that it would be him who was her partner. That would make everything a thousand times easier. It would mean that they were in it together, and then she could get past whatever mental block she was having about not dating him.

It occurred to him belatedly that he was willing to go through an awful lot to get her to date him. He was willing to try and get rid of Voldemort himself for her.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

Lily hesitated for a moment, and then shook her head. “There’s nothing,” she said, slumping against the side of her armchair.

“I heard you got called into the Headmaster’s office today,” Mary said, sitting down next to James.

“I did,” he said with a grin. “But I have no conviction of any wrong-doing.”

“What a shame,” Mary said.

James ran a hand through his hair, Lily’s eyes followed the movement. He shrugged. “They’ll get me on something soon, I’m sure.”

Mary stared into the fire for a moment, lost in thought. “I’m so ready for break,” she moaned finally, breaking the silence.

James tore his gaze away from Lily to look at Mary. “I am too,” he said, “I’m tired of endless essays.”

“I know, it’s like they’re trying to get us ready for our N.E.W.T.s already,” Mary said bitterly, echoing an old argument that had already been stated several times.

“Maybe we should write them a letter,” James said. “Dear Administration, As sixth years, we would like to remind you that our N.E.W.T.s are not for another year and a half, so if you could please stop assigning us five essays a week in preparation for said exams, that would be much appreciated. Sincerely, sixth years.”

“P.S. we’re all leaving three days early for break,” Mary added.

James laughed. “I wish,” he said. “I think my parents would kill me if I tried to leave early.”

“I know, mine too,” Mary said.

“I wouldn’t even try,” Lily said delicately rolling up her parchment.

“You are such a prefect, it kills me.” Mary said. “I don’t know how I am friends with such a goody-two-shoes.”

“I’ve never understood that phrase,” Lily said. “Goody-two-shoes? How many shoes would I otherwise have? I mean, honestly, don’t most bad people also have two shoes?”

“James, isn’t that your owl?” Mary asked, pointing over to the window of the tower.

James jumped up, letting Ignotus in. He ruffled his feathers as he settled down on the table where Lily’s essay had been a few minutes previously. 

James pulled the letter out and read it. He grinned as he reached the bottom of the page. 

His mother had been fine with Peter coming for break, and had invited Remus as well, probably so he wouldn’t feel left out, James thought.

Well, that would make for a very interesting break.

Lily yawned. “I’m going to bed, she said as she packed up her things into her bag. 

“Me too,” Mary hopped up and started up the stairs.

Lily hovered awkwardly between the stairs and James, waiting for him to finish reading his letter.

“Goodnight,” he said, looking up for a moment, thinking that was what she was waiting for.

She was staring at him strangely, in a way that made James vaguely uncomfortable.

Suddenly she stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck. He dropped the letter on the table and wrapped his arms around her waist. 

She stepped back. “Just in case,” she said.

“Just in case what?” James asked.

But she didn’t answer, just looked at him and then ran up the stairs.

 

Defense Against the Dark Arts had just gotten better with time. It was easily James’s favorite class, and he looked forward to it every week with an anticipation that made his other classes seem dull and repetitive by comparison.

On the up side, Lily was taking almost all of her classes with him and she was sitting next to him in most of them too. She was particularly helpful in potions, where she helped him fix his fouled potions with a few careful ingredients.

Professor Fenwick hadn’t gotten any less odd, but James didn’t mind at all. He found Fenwick somewhat fascinating, sometimes, instead of actually learning spells, they would just sit and listen as he told them stories about how he subdued a Dark Wizard or a Vampire, and in one case, a rogue Werewolf. Remus had left half way through that lesson without any explanation and a slightly green look on his face.

“Withstanding pain is one of the most important parts of fighting,” Professor Fenwick said on their last day of class before break. 

James watched as he paced back and forth between the two rows of desks. 

“Your enemies won’t be hitting you with jinxes and hexes, they’ll be hitting you with curses. Ones that make you bleed incessantly and impair your ability to move. Ones that make you curl over in pain.”

James shuddered. He had had a particularly bad nightmare last night. One which involved a reliving of the one time he had suffered at the Cruciatus Curse. He had no particular desire to relive that.

Lily looked over at him. He wondered if she remembered any part of that. 

“You’ll always be at a disadvantage when fighting Dark wizards, because they’ll be willing to use spells that you will not.” Fenwick reached up to trace his scar that skated across his face with his thumb. “How do you combat this? Potter?” Fenwick barked his name across the classroom.

“Er-” James floundered, thinking desperately. “By being particularly good at the spells you will use?” he asked.

Fenwick crossed his arms and slumped in against his desk, as if preparing to listen for a long while. 

James pressed his lips together, thinking furiously.

“You’d have to be particularly good at dueling,” he said, “because otherwise, they’ll just be able to incapacitate you immediately and you’d be done for.”

The class stared at him, but he was warming to his topic now.

“You’d have to be specifically good at shield charms, because otherwise you’ll be hit with Dark Magic that you didn’t even know existed, let alone know how to fix. But you also have to be decent at taking the offensive as well, otherwise you’d just be repelling spells for the rest of forever.”

Fenwick gave a slight nod.

“So, what I’m saying is, you have to be well rounded, and ... practice?” James ended with a questioning look on his face.

“Anyone else want to add anything?” Fenwick asked.

The classroom was silent.

“Good, that was excellent, James, ten points to Gryffindor.” Fenwick drew his wand out and looked around. “Pull out your wands and stand up,” he instructed.

Everyone hastened to obey.

He waved his wand twice and the desks flew to the edges of the classroom, along with the chairs.

“Pop quiz,” he announced. 

The class groaned. Lily stood up straighter next to James.

Mary looked apprehensive.

Sirius twirled his wand with his abnormally long fingers, looking bored.

Wormtail looked nervous, but he always looked nervous.

Remus, like Lily, was paying strict attention.

“-testing shield charms today,” James tuned into Fenwick at the end of his speech. “After the break we’ll test how good you are on the offensive.”

James readjusted the grip on his wand, sparks flew out of the end. He had mastered shield charms, mostly. 

Lily gave him a reassuring smile.

Oh, Merlin, he was going to cave under the pressure, and then he’d be jinxed by Professor Fenwick in front of everyone and they would all know that James Potter, master of nonverbal spells and semi-professional pranker could not cast a shield charm.

The class passed quickly, everyone else that was going before him did well. Lily managed just fine of course, Remus and Sirius did beautifully. Mary’s shield charm was a little bit shaky, but it worked just fine and Wormtail’s was thin but still protected him.

Then time seemed to slow down so that James was walking out into the middle of the classroom in complete silence.

Professor Fenwick raised his wand, pointing it at James.

James thought back to Hogsmeade, when Lily was standing right next to him and the Death Eater was casting a killing curse. 

A red light shot out of the end of Professor Fenwick’s wand.

“ _Protego!”_ James roared. His shield charm was passable, but obviously not as strong as it should have been. 

Professor Fenwick nodded at him and said, “Well done.”

James nodded back, grinning and returned to the side of the classroom. Lily smiled at him, and a swooping sensation occurred in his stomach.

A few Ravenclaws went next and then class was over.

“Congratulations on completing the semester,” Fenwick said. “I hope you all have a good break, do try to stay out of trouble.”

His gaze passed over James and Sirius quickly, and then he smiled at them all, making his scar twist around his face. 

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” Professor Fenwick said.

The students grabbed their bags and rushed out of the classroom.

James was still full of pride at his successful shield charm.

“So, Fyre tonight?” Lily asked him.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “I hope people show up even though it’s the meeting before we all go on break, and it is technically a study group.”

Lily nodded. “I think they will, didn’t you hear about what happened to the Cashore’s?”

James shook his head.

“They were murdered in Diagone Alley yesterday. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning.”

“They were murdered in Diagon Alley? How is that even possible? How did no one save them?”

“Not everyone is willing to jump to the aid of others James,” Lily said, looking down. “There was probably no one willing to risk their lives as well.”

They walked into the Great Hall.

“That’s sick,” he said flatly.

“Yes,” she shrugged a shoulder. “But anyway, I think a lot of people will come tonight. It scared a lot of people. I think they realized that they could be victims too.”

They all sat down at the Gryffindor table.

“Talking about the Cashore murders?” Sirius asked, unusually grim.

Lily nodded.

“Do you think it’ll continue?” Wormtail asked quietly. “The killing I mean.”

“They have no reason to stop,” Remus said somberly as he sat at his place, not touching any of the food in front of him. “Too few people are opposing them to make it feel like a real threat. So they’ll continue killing because they can.”

Mary leaned her head on Sirius’s shoulder, and he put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“How are we going to stop him?” Sirius asked as he frowned down at his plate.

Lily shifted in her seat, and James resolutely didn’t look at her. He, of course, was wondering the same thing. How were they going to stop him, and how was Lily supposed to shoulder the burden alone?

He pulled the mashed potatoes towards him, putting a scoop onto his plate and offering them to Lily next.

She took the bowl and scooped some out for herself was well.

They looked at each other briefly and then looked away again.

Slowly, they all started to eat in silence.

After a while everyone started to drift away, the somber conversation had put them all in a mood.

“So, we might die at any minute,” James said.

The corner of Lily’s mouth twitched upwards a little bit. 

“We might,” she agreed.

“Wouldn’t it be a shame if you died right now without ever knowing what it was like to date me?” James asked with a smile.

She tilted her head to the side. “I find no tragedy in that actually,” she said, her smile wicked as she swung her legs over the bench and stood up.

James followed her down the the aisle.

“That hurts,” he said with a hand to his chest. “Really, it does.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll be fine.”

“So, you’re not going to cave today then?” James asked.

She shook her head, “Not today.”

James fell silent, shoving his hands into his pockets. “But you do like me,” he said eventually.

“Yes.” She was staring straight ahead, with her hair obscuring part of her face so that James couldn’t see her expression.

“I can work with that,” he said after a pause.

She laughed a little bit. 

“Is there any hope of you saying yes in the near future? Any hope at all?” James asked desperately.

Lily seemed to consider it for several long moments.

“I guess that all depends on you,” she finally answered.

“On me? What do I have to do?”

“It depends on how convincing you can be.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“Well, I’ll just have to persuade you then,” James said with a thoughtful smile.


	14. One Hell of a Birthday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, I mean to sum it all up, everything goes Crazy with a capital C.

“Happy Birthday!” Clara Evans burst into her younger daughter’s room unannounced, with a lopsided birthday hat on her head and champagne poppers in her hand. She pulled the strings, making a little pop and confetti gently floated over Lily’s bed.

Lily Evans sat up, groaning a little bit and rubbing her eyes. She glanced over at the nightstand.

“Mum, it’s five in the morning,” she said incredulously. No wonder she felt like she had gotten four hours of sleep-it was because she had.

“It’s your birthday,” Clara said with a large smile.

“And it’s _five in the morning._ I’m going back to sleep,” Lily pulled the covers up and curled up on her side, closing her eyes.

When she didn’t hear her bedroom door close she peeked one eye open. Her mother was standing over her still, with a disappointed expression.

“What?” Lily asked.

“I made you breakfast,” Clara said.

Lily suppressed a groan and rolled out of bed, landing on two feet. She picked up her wand from the bedside table and slid it into her waistband.

She had been particularly paranoid lately about carrying her wand everywhere. She had nightmares about Death Eaters showing up at her house and killing her family. She didn’t know if that was actually going to happen, if that was even part of Voldemort’s plans or not, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

They had already attacked her twice this year, and one time was in Hogwarts itself. Clearly, the plans were less about subtlety and more about results. If they were willing to attack her so close to Dumbledore, and use students as part of their plans, then she wouldn’t put anything past them.

She made sure that her wand was in easy reach as she followed her mother to the kitchen. 

A plate of pancakes and bacon was on the table and Lily sat down, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she admitted to herself that she was not going to get back to sleep.

Petunia wandered in, dressed in running clothes.

“Morning Tuney,” Lily yawned, covering her mouth.

Her older sister sent her a derisive look. “Happy Birthday,” she said stiffly. 

Petunia swept out of the room, shutting the front door behind her. 

“Love you too,” Lily said bitterly.

Clara looked after Petunia mournfully. “She’ll come around,” she said softly. “Maybe after you get out of school.” Her mother poured some more pancake batter into the pan. “It’s just hard for her right now, with you gone all year. She misses you.”

Lily resisted snorting into her pancakes. 

Petunia didn’t miss her, she just hated her, and it was that simple.

Well, Lily thought, it wasn’t exactly that simple. People were complicated, and their motives for actions were even more complicated.

Exactly why Petunia hated her was more hazy. 

When they were children, she had written to Professor Dumbledore, asking to be admitted to Hogwarts as well, but it hadn’t worked. Petunia was a muggle through and through, and there was nothing that could be done about that.

After Dumbledore’s kind rejection Petunia had turned against her sister. No matter how much Lily tried her sister would not return her letters and would not speak more than three words to her when she was home.

Lily stabbed at her pancakes moodily. She had hoped that maybe this time Petunia would talk to her, or at least show some semblance of love.

It seemed that this would not be the case.

Lily shoved pancakes into her mouth.

Clara left a lingering hand on her shoulder as she leaned over to put more pancakes on the table.

She sat down, quietly pulling the food over to her own plate.

Lily finished eating relatively quickly, she’d always had problems eating a lot in the early morning, especially at five in the morning. 

She stood up and started to rinse her plate at the sink.

Afterwards Lily sat back down and stared at the wood on the table. Her wand poked uncomfortably in her back. She pulled it out and laid it on the table. 

Clara looked at it and then returned to eating. 

After a while she put her silverware down with a _clink_ and turned to her daughter. 

“Should we go visit your father today?” she asked quietly.

Lily looked down at the table and nodded.

*   *   *

The hospital was a depressing place. Lily had always thought so, and this time was no exception. 

The white walls were so white it seemed to bleach every color from the world, and the beeping of the heart monitors were slow. 

Philip Evan’s heart monitor beeped so slowly Lily had a hard time believing it would ever make another noise after the last beep had faded into the air.

Her father was laid out on the hospital bed in a position which would make him stiff for days if he ever woke up, which was becoming increasingly unlikely. 

Lily walked in to the room and sat on the plastic chair that was next to the bed. She reached over and took her father’s hand.

“Hi dad,” she said softly.

Clara stared at her husband for several seconds. She started suddenly and then hurriedly left, wiping at her eyes.

Lily stared after her, waiting until later to speak, when she could do it without choking up.

Phillip had been in a car accident, it was the most ordinary story for a coma patient. It had happened on an ordinary day, and on his most ordinary way to work.

“Mum misses you,” she finally managed. “I do too. I don’t know about Tuney, she still doesn’t talk to me. If you were awake you’d manage to fix that, she always listened to you.

“She has a boyfriend now, some tosser named Vernon Dursley. Can you imagine if she married him? Her name would be Petunia Dursley. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more ridiculous name in my life.

“I haven’t met anyone. Well, I have, his name is James and he’s mad for me, but I can’t be with him.”

Lily could just imagine her father poking her in the ribs and telling her that she could be with whoever she wanted.

“Dumbledore tells me that I’m supposed to defeat Voldemort, that I’m the one in the prophecy by that nutter. I am supposed to have the power to defeat the most powerful wizard of our time. Well, the second most powerful, because Dumbledore’s first.

“But I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that, the weight of the entire world is on my shoulders, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do to kill him. I’m just a seventeen year old girl, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be able to do any of this.

“And I can’t be with James because I’ve already gotten attacked twice this year, and I’m terrified that they’ll take him and torture him and kill him if I announce to the world that I love him.”

Lily stopped, shutting her mouth with a click. She had never admitted her herself that she loved him. Not in any quiet moments in the middle of the night, and not when he was trying to convince her to date him, and not when he saved her from the Death Eaters.

“Thing is, I’m not sure how long I can keep refusing him. Merlin, this is a mess.”

Lily let go of her dad’s hand.

“Enough about my boy problems. School is going well. I’m part of this study group with James that is dedicated to improving our skills to join the Order.

“The Order is a group of people trying to kill Voldemort.”

She paused, trying to not think about Voldemort.

“I’m doing so well in Potions. I think I’m Slughorn’s favorite student. One day, this last semester, I was having a bad day, and he told me that I was the best potions student he had ever seen.”

Lily smiled at the memory. “So that night I snuck into his office and left him a fish bowl with a petal in it. A petal from a lily, and I enchanted it so that when he came in the petal would sink, and Transform into a goldfish.” Lily grinned a proud smile. 

“That was a difficult spell, it took a while to formulate.”

She looked at the bed.

Her father was lying there, his hair almost all grey, and his face as still as stone. The corners of his mouth were turned downwards slightly, and it was this, more than anything else that pushed her over the edge.

Her father had almost always had a smile on his face.

Lily buried her face in her hands. 

“I just don’t know what to do, Dad! How am I supposed to defeat Voldemort? How am I supposed to not get into a relationship with James when I can’t avoid him and I’m in love with him? How am I supposed to get Tuney to talk to me, and what if Death Eaters come to attack us over break when I’m here alone and I can’t protect them?

“I’m so scared that they’re going to be killed getting to me,” she said desperately. “I’m so scared that they’ll be tortured.”

Lily stopped talking, she was crying too hard to be able to say anything else. 

Eventually she stood up and took one last look at her father and then walked out of the room.

*   *   *

“Please, mum,” Lily begged again, because if there was one issue that she wasn’t going to drop, it was this one.

“No!” Clara turned around, her eyes flashing. “I can’t afford it, and I don’t know what they’d be doing to him half the time.”

“They can cure him, I’m sure of it.” Lily glared at her mother as they drove back to the house. “St. Mungos is the best wizard hospital in the world, and they’d be able to fix him up in no time.”

“Lily, I said no, and that’s final.” Her mother turned into the driveway and turned off the car.

Lily jumped out and slammed the door. She ran up to her room where she threw herself onto her bed and started to cry. 

They were soft tears that held more emotion than ugly sobbing. She felt desperate for something to make her father better. Maybe she could concoct a potion that would make him wake up.

Why wouldn’t her mother just see sense? She acted like she was so proud of her daughter for having these magical abilities, but she wouldn’t actually let her use them to cure her own father.

She felt bad, worse than it had a couple of seconds ago. Lily pressed a hand against her chest, as if she were trying to push the happiness back into her chest, but there was nothing she could do. 

It surprised her that it took her this long to recognize the signs.

The thought of her mother burst into her mind and she leapt up, pulling her wand from the back of her jeans and clattering down the stairs.

Her mother was lying on the ground next to the coat closet. Petunia was across the room, looking around widely.

“What is it?” she asked fearfully.

Muggles can’t see dementors, Lily remembered suddenly.

She could see it though, the cloaked figure standing over her mother, trying kiss her, to suck her soul out of her body.

She felt her mood darken, and her thoughts turn to memories of distinctly unhappy times.

Lily gasped, a scene flooding her senses. It surrounded her, wrapping around her body.

She recognized the place immediately of course, it was one of her favorite places in the whole world. The smell of exhaust hung low in the air and the wounds of owls hooting intermingled with parents chastising their children.

“Now be good, no pranks.”

“Don’t try any food that an upper classman gives you, it’s probably enchanted and turn you into a chicken or something- and Frank! Dear, write us often.”

Petunia stood in front of Lily, but they were much younger. Petunia’s face was still round with baby fat and her hair was unkempt and much shorter. 

Lily was holding on to her sister’s hand, with her parents a few feet away. Her breath caught at the sight of her father, standing tall, with black hair that wasn’t stained with grey yet.

“I’m sorry Tuney, I’m sorry! Listen, maybe once I’m there-” her sister tried to pull away from her, but Lily held on. “No, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I’m there, I’ll be able to persuade Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!”

“I don’t-” Petunia pulled, “want- to- go!” 

And Lily let go of her hand finally as her older sister pulled away, irrevocably. 

“You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a-a-”

Petunia looked around at the platform, which was full of witches and wizards and their pets. Lily was staring at Petunia, as her face became more hard set, as she firmly settled into her new belief of what Lily was.

Lily recoiled back, as if the next words would somehow be cushioned by the action.

“-you think I want to be a- a freak?”

Lily’s eyes filled with tears and her throat constricted. 

“I’m not a freak, that’s a horrible thing to say,” she managed without her voice wavering.

“That’s where you’re going, a special school for freaks.” Petunia’s smile seemed largely grotesque, surely she hadn’t actually looked like that. “You and that Snape boy . . . weirdos, that’s what you two are. It’s good being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.”

Lily sucked in a breath, blinking rapidly to make herself see what was happening at the moment. The dementor was still bent over her mother, her face was starting to whiten and she was gasping for breath.

“ _Freak!_ ” was still ringing in her ears.

“ _Expecto._. . .” she tried, waving her wand vaguely. “ _Expecto Patronum.”_ a faint wisp came out of the end of her wand, not strong enough to do anything.

She blinked, and when she opened her eyes she was standing by the lake.

James was standing in front of her, with his wand trained on Severus. Her chest hurt to look at both of them. 

Severus was cowering on the ground.

“Leave him _alone_ ,” she was saying, and James was grinning at her.

“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” he said quickly, and his hand jumped to his hair to ruffle it anxiously. “Go on... say you’ll go out with me and I’ll never lay an wand on old Snivelly again.”

Severus was crawling toward his wand.

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” LIly said to James cruelly, and watched as his face crumpled, and then hardened.

“Bad luck, Prongs,” Sirius said, and turned back to Severus, who had already grabbed his wand.

There was a loud bang and a cut appeared on James’s cheek.

James levelled his wand at the Slytherin and he was pulled up into the air by his ankle, exposing his underpants to the crowd.

Lily fought down her urge to laugh at her best friend. It would be a cruel thing to do, and it wasn’t actually funny. “Let him down!” she said.

“Certainly,” James agreed, and Snape fell with a resounding thud. 

“ _Locomotor mortis!”_ Sirius roared, and Severus stiffened, falling over face first in the grass.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily yelled, pulling out her wand.

“Ah, Evan’s don’t make me hex you,” James said.

“Take the curse off of him them!”

James sighed dramatically and performed the countercurse.

“There you go,” he said. “You’re lucky that Evans was here Snivellus-”

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!” Severus snarled, and Lily felt like time slowed down. Severus’s expression was cruel, the kind of face that he had never shown to her. 

She could feel the support that their friendship had given her crumble inside of her until it was nothing, and her face smoothed out. 

“Fine, I won’t bother in the future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, _Snivellus._ ”

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared, planting his feet and pointing his wand straight at Severus’s chest.

“I don’t want you to make him apologize, you’re as bad as he is!” she shouted at him.

“What?!” James’s hand flew to his hair again. “I’d NEVER call you a you-know-what!”

“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can- I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.”

She turned away to leave, but she could see James’s face fall in that split second of turning, and Lily breathed in hard.

Immediately after that scene had played out, another one came into her head. 

She was in the Great Hall and breakfast was spread out across the tables. Mary was sitting next to her and they were discussing the potions essay they had due. 

A rustle of wings came from up above and the owls poured into the hall.

A tawny owl landed right in front of Lily’s plate with a gracefulness that put all other animals to shame.

Lily tugged the letter off of the birds leg and broke the seal on the parchment.

Dear Lily,

Last night your father was in a car accident. A large truck hit his car in the side and he was badly injured. He suffered several large cuts and he punctured one lung. The doctors say that he should be fine, he got out of surgery with no mishaps. But he should be awake right now, and he isn’t. 

Perhaps you could ask your Headmaster for some time off of school?

 

Mum

 

Lily pushed her plate away, keeping her head bent down like she was still reading the letter.

“Are you alright?” Mary asked.

“I’m fine,” Lily said, but her voice seemed high pitched even to her. 

She stood up abruptly. “I’m not feeling well,” she lied quickly, “I’m going to go to the Hospital Wing.”

Mary looked confused. “Okay-”

“‘Bye,” Lily rushed out of the hall and up the stairs to the Gryffindor dormitories where, she sat by the window overlooking the lake and cried.

Lily blinked again, trying to focus on here and now, but it wasn’t working.

“What’s happening?” Petunia whimpered from the corner, and Lily tried again, for her sister’s sake, if nothing else.

“ _Expecto Patronum.”_ Again, a faint wisp came out of her wand.

Lily sank to the floor, she couldn’t feel anything. Her body felt completely numb, paradoxically it also felt like it her skin, and especially her heart was being stabbed with needles that was causing pain of the most acute kind.

“Surprise! Happy Birthday!” A voice yelled, and the door behind her slammed open.

Lily blinked. Was this another memory that would strip her down and leave her raw?

“Lily,” the voice said, it sounded stricken and scared.

She looked up, and a face came into view.

“ _Expecto Patronum,”_ a confident voice said, and a stag erupted from the end of the wand and chased the dementor down.

Color flooded back into the world. 

“James . . .” Lily whispered.

“And me,” Sirius stuck his head into her line of vision.

“And Wormtail and Remus are here too,” James said as he pulled her to her feet.

Looking around, Lily could see that Remus was already checking her mother, to see if she was alright and Wormtail was helping Petunia to her feet.

“What- what was that?” Petunia said shakily.

“A dementor,” Peter said. “They suck the happiness right out of you.” 

Petunia put a hand to her chest. “Why the hell was it here?!” she asked.

“For me,” Lily gasped. “It was here for me.”

Remus sat back on his heels. Sirius was leaning against the back of the couch and Petunia was leaning heavily on Peter.

“Why was it here for you?” Petunia’s eyes were darting back and forth between all of them. 

Lily looked up at James, wondering what lie she should tell her older sister. 

She swayed slightly and James caught her, pulling her upright again.

“Lily, I’m sorry,” Remus said. 

“No.” She said automatically, rejecting even the thought of what was going to come out of Remus’s mouth.

James guided her over to a chair and helped her sit down.

“Lily, Petunia, I’m sorry,” Remus said. He pulled his wand out.

“Is she-” Lily gasped. “Is her soul-”

“No,” Remus said. “She’s just-” he stopped talking and rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry, she died,” he said. “It’s uncommon, but not unheard of.”

“What?” Petunia asked, the word sounded loud in the room. “She’s not dead. She can’t be dead.”

She stalked over to her mother and knelt down.

“Petunia,” Remus tried, kneeling down next to her and trying to pull her away. “It’s no use.”

Petunia pulled away from his hands and bent over her mother again.

Lily watched as she shook Clara’s shoulders, trying to get her to respond. 

“Mum! Mum come back!” Petunia screamed.

She turned around, staring at Lily with red rimmed eyes. Tears were streaking down her face, smearing her make-up.

“Bring her back,” she said, her voice raw.

“What?”

“Bring her back!” she repeated. “Use your magic, BRING HER BACK!” Petunia stalked over and loomed over her sister.

Lily stared up at her. “I can’t. There is no spell, no potion to bring back the dead. There’s nothing, Tuney, she’s gone.”

“NO SHE’S NOT!” she yelled, and snatched Lily’s wand from her hand.

She pointed it at their mother and slashed it through the air. “Come back!” she was screaming. “Come back!” 

James grabbed Sirius’s arm and muttered, “Send a message to Dumbledore.”

Sirius nodded and walked out the front door.

James walked over to Petunia and pulled the wand from her hand, giving it back to Lily.

Petunia collapsed without it, placing her head in her hands and sobbing.

James put his arms around her, rubbing her back soothingly.

Lily watched, numb.

Remus came over and knelt in front of Lily. 

“Lily,” he said kindly. She stared at his face. He was so young to be so responsible. He was too young to give two sisters the news of their mother’s death. “Lily, I need you to focus.” He said seriously. “Why was the dementor here?”

“It was- it was here for me.” she mumbled.

“Why was it here for you?”

Peter hovered in the background, watching the conversation take place.

“They want me gone,” she said. “And they’ll do anything to get it.” She looked up at Petunia. “I was afraid this would happen.”

“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” Petunia yelled at her. “If you were someone _normal_ she would never have been killed! She’d be just fine!”

James stepped away from her, a look of disgust coming over his face.

Lily watched him quietly as he took on her argument for her.

“It’s not her fault,” he said softly. “It’s the Death Eater’s fault. They are the ones that sent it, not your sister.”

“I DON’T CARE!” Petunia screamed. 

Remus took a step towards her, probably trying to placate her in some way that only he had the patience to do.

“Don’t touch me!” Petunia snarled, stepping away. 

Remus took a step back, assuming a polite expression.

“There’s no need for yelling,” he said reasonably.

Petunia sent him a withering look. “My mum is dead,” she said with a tremor in her voice.

Lily flinched.

“You are all freaks,” Petunia said, backing away. Tears were streaming down her face still.

Lily stood up, “I am not a freak,” she said defiantly.

Petunia nodded slowly. “Yes, you are. Mum agreed with me.”

“No she didn’t.” Lily was remarkably calm.

“Why didn’t she want to take dad to the hospital for your kind? Because she agreed with me.” Petunia wiped away her tears.

“Take that back,” Lily said quietly.

James’s eyes flicked back and forth between the sisters.

Lily raised her wand and pointed it at Petunia. “Take it back!” she yelled.

Petunia’s eyes widened, staring at her wand. “Don’t point that at me,” she said fearfully.

James stepped forward. “Lily,” he said quietly, placing a hand on her wrist. “Lily, you don’t want to curse your sister.”

He pushed down on her wrist, making her wand point at the floor instead. 

The sound of a scuffle came from outside.

James turned his head to the door and was out in the yard in under a second.

Lily followed, racing Remus to get out of the door.

She squeezed out and ran out into the grass, her bare feet touching the coolness of the dirt.

A sharp light burst and there was a bang. 

“It’s alright,” Sirius’s voice said. “He’s a muggle.”

“Oh,” James sounded disappointed, like he wanted it to be a Death Eater. 

“Well, he knows about us,” Sirius said. “He knew I was a wizard as soon as he saw my wand. Maybe he’s married to a witch, he has a wedding ring.”

“Maybe,” James said doubtfully. They started to move back to the house, Lily squinted through the darkness to try and see better.

Sirius was supporting a man towards the house and James was on the other side, trying to help, but mostly unsuccessfully.

Peter stood behind her, and Petunia was standing on the porch. 

Remus rushed forward to try and help.

The head lolled to the side, and the man looked up Lily and then at Petunia.

Lily’s eyes widened and she looked at Petunia to receive confirmation that she was not, in fact, hallucinating. 

Petunia’s jaw dropped and she stared at the man in wonder.

“Dad?” she asked.


	15. An Unlikely Gathering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I feel so bad for taking so long to post this chapter. Sorry. I'm really honestly sorry.

The whole group froze.

“This is your dad?” James asked.

Lily nodded numbly.

James slipped out from underneath his arm and backed away, pointing his wand at Phillip. Sirius did the same, even Remus backed away slowly, raising his wand.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked, running forward and putting her hand on James’s arm.

“Ask him a question,” he said.

“What?” Lily asked, half screeching.

“Petunia,” her father said, his voice sounded like it was coming over on a radio, it was crackled and faint. “Lily. ... You’re so tall,” he said, and he laughed breathlessly.

He leaned over placing his hands on his knees.

Lily rushed forward, pushing him upright and helping him stand. 

James took a few steps forward and reached out. His hand clamped over Lily’s upper arm and dragged her away.

“James!” she yelled at him in indignation.

“You said your father was in a coma,” he hissed at her. “You told me that. So why is he suddenly awake right now, on the same night that Death Eaters sent a dementor to your house?” He glared at her. “Think, Lily.”

James raised his wand to point at Phillip again.

“Ask him a question that only he would know, make sure it’s not a Death Eater who used polyjuice potion.”

Lily stared at James for a moment, and then she turned to her father, keeping a tight grip on her wand.

“I, uh-” she racked her brains for a question.

Petunia stepped forward. “What did you say when Lily went off to school for her first year?”

Phillip swayed on the spot, clutching the middle of his stomach. Finally he blurted out, “I told you that just because you didn’t have magic, that didn’t mean you weren’t special.”

Lily looked to Petunia, and her older sister looked back at her and nodded. “That’s right,” and relief could be heard in her voice.

Lily shoved her wand back into her waistband and rushed forward, holding her dad up.

Petunia hovered nearby, as if she were afraid to touch him. 

Lily pulled him into the house, with the boys following behind.

Lily placed her father on the couch and stepped back to James, specifically avoiding the area in front of the hall closet, where her mother lay. 

“I don’t know what we should do,” James was saying.

“I reckon we should just wait for Dumbledore,” Sirius was answering.

“I think he’s right,” Peter said. “I don’t know how we should proceed either.”

“How is he awake?” James asked. “I don’t understand how that works. Who woke him up and why?”

“Does there have to be a reason?” she asked.

James looked at her sadly. “Yes.”

“Why can’t it be a miracle?” she asked desperately. 

“Lily, I’m sorry, but we’re at war right now. You-Know-Who is trying to get at you, and he’ll do anything it takes. I’m sorry, but your father is probably just a game piece to him.” James pulled her against his chest. 

She pushed back, fighting her way out of his arms. It made her angry, that Voldemort would do something like that, and she didn’t want to be comforted. She wanted to fight someone.

“What happened to your mother?” Phillip was looking over the back of the couch and staring at Clara’s inert form.

Lily swallowed hard.

Petunia turned away, a hand over her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Lily said. Clearly this was going to fall to her, Petunia couldn’t speak. “She ...” Lily trailed off. 

The boys were looking on with solemn faces. 

Lily took a shuddering breath, the kind that made the bottom of her lungs hurt.

“She passed on a couple of minutes before you got here.”

James reached out to Lily again; his fingertips just grazed the edge of her arm as she stepped away.

Phillip was staring, transfixed at his wife’s form on the floor.

“Dad?” Lily asked, moving forward.

He looked up, his movement sharp and his eyes unfocused. “Lily?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s me,” she placed a hand on his shoulder.

He stared at her, as if working through a difficult problem. His eyes focused suddenly. “We have to get out of here,” he said urgently. “They’re coming, they’re com-”

He stopped suddenly, his eyes going out of focus again.

He mumbled something under his breath that Lily couldn’t understand.

The front door opened, Lily turned, pulling her wand out of her waistband and pointing it at the newcomer. All four of the Marauders had pulled their wands as well and were pointing it at the girl.

Mary MacDonald stood there, a present in her arms and a shocked look on her face.

“Merlin, I know I’m late, but does that mean that I should get five wands pulled on me?” Her grin faded as she took in the solemn expressions of the others.

She stepped onto the threshold. “Is that ... Mr. Evans?” She asked incredulously.

Phillip turned his head towards her, “Hello,” he said pleasantly.

Lily stepped forward. “What is your greatest fear in life?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” Mary asked, looking around the circle of people.

“I have to make sure you’re not a Death Eater, now answer the question!” Lily half-shouted.

“Someone transforming me into a hamster and keeping me as a pet,” Mary said back quickly.

Lily lowered her wand. The Marauders followed suit.

“Okay, we have to go,” James said. He had clearly taken charge of the situation. 

“Why?” Mary said.

“He said they’re coming,” James said, jerking his thumb towards Phillip. “I assume ‘they’ means Death Eaters, so we should really start moving.”

“I was mistaken, we should stay here and wait until Dumbledore shows up,” Mr. Evans said calmly.

“That’s not what you said,” Lily’s grip on her wand tightened until her knuckles were white and her nails were digging into her palm.

“I was wrong,” he said, “I was shocked by what happened to your mother.”

“What happened to her mother?” Mary asked.

“She was killed by a Dementor,” Sirius said quietly.

Lily could hear Mary’s sharp intake of breath.

“Say her name,” Lily said quietly. 

Phillip looked back blankly. “I’m sorry?”

“You keep calling her ‘your mother,’ like she has had nothing to do with you, like you didn’t even know her! CALL HER BY HER NAME!” 

Sparks shot out of the end of Lily’s wand.

“Clara,” Phillip said, and his eyes widened for a moment and he shook his head in confusion.

Lily backed away. “I think he’s been put under the Imperius Curse.”

“What’s that?” Petunia asked urgently.

“It means that someone else is controlling him,” Lily said quickly. “It’s not permanent, some people can fight it off.”

“We need to leave,” James said. “We need to leave right now.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Lily snapped.

“I’m sorry Lily, but you have to.” James grabbed her upper arm and started to pull her out of the room, “Someone put a body bind curse on him or something.”

“NO!” Lily shouted, pulling out of his grasp. 

“Lily, we _don’t have time_ ,” he hissed, stepping closer to her.

A figure appeared in the still open doorway. Lily’s eyes widened as she looked over James’s shoulder.

He turned around. 

“I think your time has run out.” The voice was feminine, and James slumped slightly.

“Damn it,” he whispered.

The figure sauntered into the living room. “Dear old dad served his purpose quite well, didn’t he?” She said, her voice turning high pitched at the end.

“Ah, my favorite cousin,” Sirius said disdainfully. “I have to say, I haven’t missed the family dinners.”

Bellatrix Lestrange turned around, brushing her hair out of her face. She walked over to stand in front of Sirius.

She pouted, “You missed my wedding too,” she said, running the tip of her wand along his cheek.

“Ah yes, the possibilities that we had there,” Sirius said. “The disruptions I could have made. The insults you could have shot at me.”

“But why linger over days gone by?” Rodolphus said as he appeared in the doorway as well.

“We have plenty of time now,” Bellatrix said as she circled him. “ _Blood-traitor._ ”

Sirius sighed. “All the same taunts, really Bellatrix, you should be more creative. I mean, there are so many better insults.”

“If you really wanted to irritate him you would insult his hair,” James offered. 

“Or my arguably impressive physique.”

Bellatrix rolled her eyes as Lily tried to suppress a laugh.

“Look what we have here,” Rodolphus said, walking over to Petunia. “A pretty little mudblood.”

Lily stepped forward, in front of her sister. She held her wand out towards Rodolphus. “Don’t you dare touch her,” she said.

He raised his hands in a mock surrender. “Look at her, so defensive of her muggle sister, who doesn’t even have magic. What’s so special about her?” He stepped around them, circling them. 

Lily stepped with him, not letting him an inch closer to Petunia.

“Why do you love her so when she’s so _ordinary_?”

He moved his wand quickly, and Lily’s fingers opened, her own wand flying out of her hand and into his.

Rodolphus moved forward quickly, brushing past her and grabbing Petunia’s face in his hand.

He inspected her face closely. 

She tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong.

“So dull,” he whispered, letting go finally and she stumbled away, tears leaking out from the corners of her eyes.

Lily longed to have her wand back in her hand again so that she could curse him until he was unrecognizable.

“What do you want?” James asked.

“We want her,” Bellatrix pointed at Lily. 

“No,” James said.

“Absolutely not,” Sirius agreed.

“You’ll have to fight me,” Mary lifted her chin up.

“And me,” Peter said.

“I think what we’re trying to say is, it’s going to take a lot of work,” Remus said.

“We’ll take her no matter how much work it takes,” Bellatrix said.

“No.” Phillip stood up. Lily looked over in surprise. “No,” he repeated. “You’re not going to take my daughter.”

“I think he fought off the Imperius Curse,” James said conversationally.

Sirius nodded in agreement. “Pretty strong for a muggle,” he smirked at Rodolphus.

Rodolphus shrugged. “No matter,” he said. He pointed Lily’s wand at her father and a green light shot out of it.

It hit him in the middle of his chest. His mouth popped open into a perfect O and he fell over backwards.

“Daddy?” Lily rushed forward and cradled his head in her hands. 

He didn’t move at all.

She was not prepared to handle the death of her father so soon after getting him back. 

She shook his shoulders slightly, like he would open his eyes if he was disturbed.

She placed her hand right over his heart, waiting for the steady beat which just earlier today had been vocalized by the heart monitor.

There was nothing there. There was no reassuring _thump_. There was no heartbeat.

She set his head back down on the ground, gently and stood up.

Bellatrix was grinning.

Everyone was watching her, waiting.

She flexed her fingers, her eyes fixed on her wand in Rodolpus’s hand. 

She held her hand out. “If you would,” she asked him.

“I don’t think so,” he leered at her.

The wand flew out of his hand and into James’s. “I do,” he said, walking over and handing it to Lily.

She wrapped her fingers around the end of it, feeling a bit of a grin come over her face. 

“Right,” she said, raising her wand, noticing that as she did so the Marauders and Mary also did the same.

“Petunia,” she said. “Behind us.”

Her older sister scrambled behind them, taking shelter behind the couch.

“Well,” Sirius said, “Let’s get on with it shall we?”

Bellatrix laughed, high and shrill, as the room exploded with light.

It was three on one, and it was almost an even match.

Lily worked with James and Peter as Rodolphus managed to repel every one of their spells while still managing to attack.

Peter’s wand flew out of his hand and it clattered to the floor behind their opponent.

A second later he was immobilized by a jinx that Lily didn’t recognize.

To the side, Bellatrix shrieked as a cut appeared on her cheek and Sirius laughed cruelly.

“ _Cruicio,_ ” Rodolphus screamed and James dropped to the floor, screaming.

Lily slashed her wand through the air, furiously concentrating on every nonverbal spell she had mastered.

Rodolphus staggered backwards as tentacles sprouted from his skin and his eyebrows began to grow at an alarming rate.

Lily finished him off with ropes that bound his hands and feet, he hopped once and then fell over. 

James crawled over to where Peter lay, and started to try counterjinxes. Bellatrix’s wand soared through the air and landed behind Sirius.

“Look at that,” he said, “all defenseless.”

She laughed shrilly, looking behind him.

They all turned around, Sirius rotating to keep a wand on Bellatrix.

A man stood there, next to Petunia, who looked terrified. “You’re getting much better at dueling,” he complimented them.

“My Lord,” Bellatrix said softly.

The man waved his wand and Rodolphus’s bindings snapped apart, and he scrambled to his feet.

Bellatrix’s wand flew back into her hand. She cackled again.

“Lord Voldemort,” the man said, introducing himself, “for those who don’t know who I am.”

“That’s a bit pretentious, isn’t it?” Sirius asked. “Naming yourself as a Lord.”

“It is, isn’t it?” James said. “It’s like patting yourself on your back every time you meet someone new.”

Voldemort waved his wand again and James reeled backwards, putting a hand over his abdomen and breathing hard.

Voldemort brushed past Petunia and turned toward Lily.

“So, this is the mudblood who is the source of all my problems,” he muttered to himself.

He circled her, examining her body. She forced herself not to move under his scrutiny.

“You must live such an unsatisfying life,” he said suddenly.

“I’m sorry?” she asked.

“A life where your family doesn’t understand who you are and what you can do. A life where you have few friends at Hogwarts and your best friend spurned you in front of your classmates.”

“He’s not my best friend anymore.”

Voldemort ignored her, continuing on. “A life where you cannot be with the man you love, and you worry about the future constantly.”

Lily pressed her lips together, trying to ignore what he was saying. How did he know all of these things about her?

A pressure was pushing against her mind, and she shook her head once, trying to clear it. 

“What a cruel life, to think you’re special, a witch in the family of mudbloods, and then to find that you’re _ordinary._ ” He spoke the word like a curse. “Your only sister spurns you for what you are, and your parents lie here dead,” the last word fell hard, shattering Lily’s concentration.

“If I was so ordinary then why have you spent a year trying to kill me?” Lily lifted her chin up.

Voldemort took a step closer to her, invading her personal space.

James’s arm twitched, his wand raising half an inch.

“You’re ordinary because you’ll die like the rest of them, alone, and by my hand.” 

“That’s not what the prophecy says,” Lily said, swallowing hard.

“No,” Voldemort stepped back just slightly. “It’s not, is it?”

James was looking back and forth between Voldemort and Lily, clearly wondering what, exactly, he did not know.

Voldemort turned away from Lily, looking over the rest of the teenagers that were there. “Sirius Black,” he said. “You had such potential.”

Sirius threw his hands in the air. “Just because I didn’t join you doesn’t mean that I don’t have potential anymore,” he said. “I mean, I can still cure dragon pox or something.”

“Actually, he did that last Thursday, they’ve offered him a position at St. Mungos,” James grinned at Voldemort.

He did not look amused. “Two pure bloods,” he said, and the longing was evident in his voice. “Why don’t you stay true to the blood that runs in your veins? Join me.”

“Well, see, it’s not so much about the blood that runs in our brains, it more-” James looked over at Sirius, “How do I put this delicately?”

“It’s more of the fact that we have brains.”

Remus snorted.

Voldemort turned to him, taking a step away from Petunia. Lily gestured sharply and her sister ran behind her. Voldemort took no notice.

“Remus Lupin,” he breathed. “The werewolf.”

Lily looked up. So, Severus had been right about that.

“We have many of your kind in my ranks, you could fit in there, have friends who understand you.” Voldemort grinned, his skin stretching across his cheekbones in a grotesque way.

“My friends understand me just fine, thanks,” Remus said curtly. “Besides, I don’t think I want to have anything to do with Fenrir Greyback. Our morals do not coincide.”

Voldemort turned back towards Lily, “And you will not join me either?” he asked her.

“I’d never consider it,” she said firmly. “And if I did, you’d kill me on the first day anyway. That doesn’t seem like a very good career option.”

“Bellatrix, Rodolphus, take care of them,” Voldemort said and he turned towards Lily. “I’ll take the girl myself.”

James stepped forward, a look of horror on his face as he watched Voldemort approach her. 

“ _Crucio,_ ” Bellatrix hissed, and James stopped moving abruptly, instead bending over in half, clutching at his torso.

Behind Lily, Petunia whimpered. 

A _pop_ came from Lily’s left.

“Sorry I’m late,” a mild voice said. “I was in the middle of supper.”

Lily turned to see Dumbledore standing there, a pleasant smile on his face, and his hands clasped in front of him with his wand dangling between his fingers.

“It’s nice to see you again, Tom,” he said.

“Dumbledore,” Voldemort hissed, and he raised his wand.

Dumbldore was quicker, sweeping his hands and pushing the seven teenagers and two Death Eaters to the side of the house and moving all of the furniture as well.

The living room was then open for the duel that was about to commence. 

“Come on,” James clamped his hand over her arm. “We’ve got to go, we have to get out of here.”

He pulled her to her feet. Lily let him, staring as lights exploded in between Dumbledore and Voldemort.

She dug her heels in, refusing to move any further and he lessened his grip. She reached out to grab Petunia, and then ran out of the house with James. Mary and Remus followed behind, Sirius a second after, with an ashen Peter with an arm slung around his shoulder.

“What are they doing?” Petunia asked, a look of horror on her face as she looked back at the house. “Who was that man?”

“They’re dueling, it’s like fighting, but with wizards,” Remus told her kindly.

“And the one with the beard is Dumbledore, the best Wizard of our time and the Headmaster of our school.” The respect in James’s voice was evident. “The bald guy is Voldemort and he’s basically trying to kill everyone right now.”

“We don’t like him,” Sirius said, almost staggering under Peter’s weight. “Almost as much as I don’t like them,” he pointed down the street.

Lily turned, wondering how, exactly, this night could get any worse.

“Malfoy,” James said, identifying Lucius.

“And Avery,” Sirius said, “He helped kill the Bones.”

“Nott’s here too. I saw his picture in the Prophet the other day,” James said.

“And Greyback,” Remus said quietly. “He’s mine.”

“This is going to be a proper fight, now isn’t it?” James asked in a falsely cheery voice.

Lily felt a sense of dread come over her.

A shrill laugh came from over in the doorway. “You didn’t think we’d just let you disappear, did you?” Bellatrix called.

Mary shied away, stepping closer to Sirius, who half stepped in front of her protectively, dragging Peter along with him.

“Oh, God, we’re going to die,” Petunia whimpered.

Lily turned to her, “We are not going to die. Do you understand me?” She shook her sister’s shoulders slightly, making sure she was listening to her. 

Lily stepped over to Sirius, “Give me Peter,” she said. 

“What?”

“Give me Peter,” she repeated firmly.

Sirius shrugged him off of his shoulder slowly and Lily took on most of his weight. 

She dragged him over to Petunia. “Take him,” she said.

“What?” Petunia looked alarmed. 

Lily shoved Peter onto Petunia, who stumbled before getting her feet under her and supporting him.

“Lucius, it’s been a while,” James called to Malfoy pleasantly.

Lily addressed Peter. “Take her to the Potter’s, stay with her, don’t leave and don’t let anyone touch her, you hear me?” 

Peter nodded, his skin looked a touch grey and he was swaying slightly. She doubted his ability to cast a spell right now, but he _had_ to.

“Send James’s parents here, we can use the help. And tell them to call as much of the Order as they can, if Dumbledore hasn’t done it already. I have a feeling that more Death Eaters will show up.” She took a deep breath. “Did you pass your apparition test?”

“‘M not sefenteen yet,” Peter mumbled.

“Oh, Merlin.” Lily sighed, looking up at the sky and closing her eyes for a moment, praying to some unknown deity. 

“Well, try not to splinch yourself.”

“What splinching?” Petunia asked fearfully.

Lily spared her sister a glance. She put her hand on Petunia’s upper arm and squeezed. “I love you,” she said.

Petunia opened her mouth wordlessly, and stood silent for a second.

“Go,” Lily told Peter, and he did.

He took a half step to turn into a circle and a _crack_ filled the air and he and Petunia twisted into thin air.

“Cheaters!” Bellatrix screeched. “Naughty little things, aren’t you, taking away all the fun before it even begins. I had plans for your sister,” she told Lily.

Lily scowled at her, raising her wand. A jet of light shot out, aimed right for Bellatrix’s chest.

She waved it away with a _bang_ and a shield charm.

She tsked. “Now, now, don’t start playing until it’s time,” she told Lily. “We’ve got to talk first.”

“About what?”

“The Dark Lord wanted to do this part himself, but he is-” she paused delicately. “Otherwise engaged.”

A window cracked behind her with superb dramatic timing.

Bellatrix advanced on Lily, “Now, what exactly do you have planned to attempt to defeat the Dark Lord?”

Lily grinned, sure she looked mad with her hair tangled and blood on her face. “I’ve got loads planned,” she said.

Bellatrix raised her wand and pointed it at Lily’s chest.

Rudolphus hovered behind her.

“What do you have planned?” she asked again.

“It’s a simple plan, really,” Lily said, “I’m going to kill him.”

“How?”

“Don’t know yet.”

A look of relief came over Bellatrix’s face, and she smiled. “You won’t be able to,” she said.

“Well, Voldemort is just a man,” Lily answered. “Just like any other.”

“You speak his name?” Bellatrix said incredulously. “A mudblood?”

Rudolphus started forward, his hand raising to slap Lily across the face. James’s hand shot out of nowhere, grabbing Rudolphus’s arm.

They made eye contact, and then James’s right fist came around, his wand in his fist and he punched the Death Eater in the face.

Lestrange reeled backwards and put a hand to his cheek. “Bastard,” he spat out.

“Nope,” James said. “My parents were married.”

Sirius laughed. 

The rest of the Death Eaters had stepped forward at the hit, and everyone’s wands were raised, the teenagers a nucleus at the center of the circle, pointing outwards and then Death Eaters in the outer ring, pointing in.

Lily pointed her wand at Bellatrix, they stayed there, locked in stasis for several seconds.

James was a warm figure next to her. Lily could see Sirius in the corner of her eye on the other side of James, with Mary next to him and behind her. Remus was in between Mary and Lily, a wand trained on Fenrir Greyback.

“Well, why don’t we start?” James asked, and his words broke the tension and then the street exploded with light.


	16. Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry it took me forever to update this chapter. I'm a terrible person.

Everything was so much quieter during a fight. That was the weird thing, it was like all sound was dulled and everything moved slower.

That was false, of course, but it felt like that. Really, James just noticed everything and processed everything faster. 

The light that shot past him seemed to have a dream like quality. He only had moments of panic when one of those lights shot towards him or Lily, he ignored everyone else, trusting them protect each other.

Faint _cracks_ came from the end of the street, and James looked over to see his parents appear. They stood next to each other, wands held out towards the enemies.

Death Eaters ran out to meet them, preventing them from meeting up. James scowled. He slashed his wand through the air, “ _Flagrate,_ ” he muttered violently, and burn marks appeared on Rodolphus’s skin. He finished him off with a stunning spell and then ran to help his parents.

Lucius Malfoy appeared in between then, stopping James from continuing. 

“Ah, Potter,” he said, in his smooth voice that felt like a cheese grater against James’s skin.

“Lucius,” James inclined his head. “It’s not a pleasure to see you.”

“Your friends are not doing well,” Malfoy said, nodding to behind James; he refused to turn to look, convinced that Malfoy would curse him as soon as he turned his head.

He knew that the teenagers were being pushed back, but his parents were surrounded by Death Eaters, and he had to go help them as well.

Fire snaked out of the end of James’s wand, and Lucius deflected it with a _bang_. Malfoy stepped forward, advancing on James, but he refused to move backwards.

James stepped forward as well. 

They were two feet apart, casting spells at each other in a flurry, until it was only reaction that James relied on, trusting his instincts to block the jinxes and using every spell that he had ever learned in Fyre.

James took another step forward when Lucius faltered and raised his hand that was clenched around his wand, a shield charm billowing out around his arm and punched Malfoy in the face.

Lucius snarled and kicked him in the knee.

James yelled, driving his left fist into the Death Eater’s stomach while deflecting Malfoy’s jinx. Suddenly, Malfoy’s head was yanked back and he almost fell over.

A man appeared over his head, his hand clenched around Lucius’s white blond ponytail. He was grinning maniacally. One eye was twirling around in it’s socket, at one point looking in the back of his head, towards James’s parents.

“Well, take him out, boy,” he said in a gruff voice and James complied, stunning Malfoy.

The man dropped his ponytail and let Lucius fall onto the street.

The electric blue eye whizzed to the front to look at James, or perhaps it was looking _through_ James, he couldn’t tell.

“Better go help your parents,” he said.

James nodded, “Right,” he said, panting a little bit. “Right.”

The man turned and ran back to help Sirius and Mary dispatch the Death Eaters they were dueling.

James didn’t even have time to wonder who that man was as he ran towards his parents, jinxing two Death Eaters from behind on the way.

Once they were out of the way it took a couple of seconds for Eliza and Clay to stun the others they were fighting.

James started towards them, ready to hug them hello and then pull them over to help his friends,who were being pushed back more and more by the second.  Just as he took a step a huge explosion came from inside Lily’s house. James clapped his hands over his ears instinctively, and the blast of hot air that came out of the house knocked him over on his side.

He hit the street hard, his shoulder aching immediately and the heat searing his face. He opened his eyes slowly, the world tilting slightly as he did so.

His parents were on the ground as well, farther away from him, his father on top of his mother, protecting her from the blast. She was pushing him off angrily and crawling towards James.

He waved a hand to let her know that he was alright.

There was a ringing sound in his ears that wasn’t going away. He couldn’t hear anything else over it.

A pair of feet appeared in the side of his vision, and he looked up to see red hair streaming behind Lily as she ran over to him.

He knew that this was potentially the last night of his life, and that he might be tortured into insanity if things went wrong, but at that moment all he could think about was Lily.

She was mouthing his name, but he couldn’t hear anything. He touched his ears, trying to see if he could somehow feel what was wrong with him.

His hand came away sticky with blood.

Lily was pulling his shoulders up off of the ground and cradling him in her lap. He wanted to stand up, annoyed, but he couldn’t move very well.

She pulled her wand out, turning his head to the side, and mouthed something.

A faint _pop_ sounded and he could suddenly hear on the left side of his world. She turned him the other way and fixed his other ear.

“Thank you,” he whispered, turning his head to look at the house, which was in flames.

“Get off of me, you’re heavy,” was Lily’s only response.

James tried to sit up, heaving his upper body forward. Lily pushed him, trying to help.

“Where’s Dumbledore?” James asked, suddenly worried.

“Don’t know, had other things to worry about,” Lily said tersely.

James looked over, trying to see if Sirius, Remus and Mary were okay. They were still standing, far enough away from the blast, and they were staring at the house in flames, oblivious to Bellatrix Lestrange, who was pointing her wand right towards Lily.

James reacted instantly, casting a shield charm nonverbally.

His charm was weak, much weaker than it should have been and James scowled, envisioning even more long hours of practicing the spell. Still, it was strong enough that the spell bounced off.

He gestured towards Bellatrix weakly.

He wished he would suddenly get a second burst of strength and leap up to avenge Lily, but he had no such luck.

“Will you take care of her?” he asked Lily, leaning forward to breathe the hot heavy air heavily. 

Lily turned, kneeling on the pavement and pointed her wand towards Bellatrix.

James rolled over, kneeling on the street with his palms flat against the ground, coughing up blood.

Merlin, it was hard to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. 

Soft hands pushed him so that he was lying on his side, and his mother’s face appeared in front of him.

“Help Lily,” he said as loud as he could, which was a mere whisper.

“Your father’s doing that,” she said calmly. “I’m helping you.”

She conjured a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his chin. She pulled her wand out and tapped it on his chest, mouthing some incantation that James couldn’t hear.

His chest expanded abruptly, filling with hot heavy air that felt like heaven. He gasped a couple of times, allowing his lungs to take control of his mind for a while.

“She did a good job on your ears, she could be a healer,” Eliza said kindly, and she moved on to the cut on his forehead, making his skin knit together.

In his nauseated state, the feeling of his skin healing made him turn, and throw up on the street. His hands were shaking badly, but he raised his wand, whispering, _“Aguamenti_ ,” and rinsing out his mouth.

Eliza raised her wand, jinxing a Death Eater who was creeping up on them.

He toppled to the ground, and as he did James could see his face, Thicknesse was covered in boils that were turning his face red. He was cursing Eliza as he desperately tried not to move for fear of causing himself pain.

Greyback, who was half covered in fur and was snapping his fangs that were housed inside a human mouth, was bounding towards Remus. James’s throat made a strangled cry as he watched. 

He raised his wand, trying to help, but he didn’t need to. Three stunning spells hit the werewolf in midair, one coming from Remus, another from Sirius and the last from Mary.

Greyback fell to the ground with a solid _thunk_ , and did not move again. A trickle of blood was coming out of his mouth.

In front of him, Lily dodged a curse from Bellatrix, missing death by a fraction of an inch. James’s heart was pounding as he watched the fights that were playing out in front of him.

He needed to get up and help them all, there were too many Death Eaters. They would fold under the numbers. 

A tall, lean figure walked out of the burning house, and Bellatrix laughed high and shrilly. “Master,” she said reverently. “Have you killed Dumbledore?”

“He fled,” Voldemort said. “Before I could properly finish him.”

“Liar,” James whispered, but no one could hear him.

There was no way Dumbledore would just leave a fight like this, not when he could help.

The man with the electric blue eye laughed mockingly.

“If Dumbledore ran away then I’m a grindylow.” he said gruffly.

Voldemort raised his wand, pointing it at the man. “Alastor Moody,” he said.

Moody bowed slightly. “Nice to meet you,” he said. 

“You’ve put many of my followers in Azkaban,” Voldemort said, narrowing his eyes. A spell shot out of his wand.

Moody deflected it, “It was a pleasure,” he said.

Voldemort’s spell hit him in the chest, making him stagger backwards and fall onto the ground, curling up in pain. 

James knew the effects of the cruciatus curse when he saw them.

Moody didn’t scream, just curled up there, panting. James looked away.

“I wasn’t thanking you,” Voldemort spat. “I’ll thank you when you stop putting my followers behind bars.”

“I won’t stop.” Moody gasped. He grinned, one side of his mouth curling upwards and his eye whizzed about.

Voldemort smiled. “I’ll persuade you,” he said. Another light came out of his wand and suddenly there was blood everywhere, originating from Moody’s left kneecap.

“Much worse is coming for you, Alastor Moody,” Voldemort said. He looked up, his eyes seeking out Lily. “Much worse is coming for all of you, if you don’t give her up.”

Clay pushed Lily behind him, and James felt an overwhelming surge of love for his father.

“Shall I give you an example?” He asked, and he waved his wand towards the burning house. “A nice little surprise came in the fireplace while Dumbldore and I were talking.”

What? James racked his brains. Who else was coming tonight? He felt his stomach sink, Astrid had said she had something else, but she might have been able to get out of it, and surprise Remus . . .

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and pulled himself to his feet.

Astrid came out of the house, walking of her own free will. Her eyes were dead, and her head was cocked at an unnatural angle.

“Hello,” she said. Her blonde hair was straight, flowing down her back, and her blue eyes started at Remus. 

Remus started to move towards her, his movements jerky.

Sirius placed a hand on his arm. Remus looked back at him, agony written over his face. Sirius shook his head no. 

“Shit,” Lily whispered, reaching out for James blindly. 

He took her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

Astrid looked around at all of them, and James could almost see the panic behind the Imperius curse. 

But still, she wasn’t strong enough to fight it off.

Her wand was grasped in her right hand, and she raised it, pointing towards Remus.

He didn’t react. James wasn’t sure if he could jinx her at all if it came down to it.

“ _Crucio,_ ” she whispered.

Remus crumpled to the ground. His yells echoed down the street, and James cringed, wondering for the first time why the muggles hadn’t come out to see what was going on.

“Oh, Merlin,” Lily whispered, turning away and pressing her face into James’s chest.

James raised his wand, fully intending to disarm Astrid. 

Before he could cast his spell, Remus stopped yelling abruptly, and she lowered her wand.

The silence was loud in James’s ears.

Remus gasped for air, digging his fingers into the pavement.

“No,” Astrid said.

Voldemort frowned, concentrating.

“NO!” she yelled, but she didn’t move. It was disconcerting to watch, there were tears running down her face, but she didn’t move an inch as she denied Voldemort himself.

Voldemort hissed, raising his wand. 

“No,” Remus started to drag himself forward on the ground, pain twisting his features.

Sirius and James both stepped forward, raising their wands and pointing them at Voldemort.

“Don’t touch her,” Sirius said.

Remus scrambled around on the ground, looking for his wand. His fingers finally closed around the end of it and he raised it, pointing it at Voldemort even as he lay on the ground, cringing from the aftershocks of pain.

Lily stepped away from James and turned to Voldemort as well. The Death Eaters, who were spread out along the street were facing off with the teenagers as they all raised their wands.

Moody’s wand was slick with his blood, and he couldn’t move an inch from where he lay on the pavement, but he took up a defensive posture anyway, looking eager to duel.

“No!” Astrid yelled again, her arm twitching. 

A _crack_ sounded from James’s left, and he looked over to see Dumbledore standing there.

He waved his wand and Astrid moved, almost floating, towards Remus, who caught her and held her tightly, whispering something in her ear.

“We’re still outnumbered,” James whispered.

“I know,” Lily answered.

“I’m not quite ready to die,” James said evenly. All at once he was struck by how much he like this -this being life. He liked planning pranks and falling in love with Lily three times a week. He liked complaining about homework with other people. He even liked worrying about dying.

There were more _cracks_.

Members of the Order appeared at both ends of the street, apparently called here by Dumbledore.

Voldemort looked around.

“Time to go,” he said softly, and before any of them could cast a spell, all the Death Eaters disapparated. 

It was over, just like that.

“That was the most anticlimactic ending in the history of endings,” James said loudly.

Lily lowered her wand and then sat down in the middle of the street. 

James leaned over quickly, “Are you okay?” he asked. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“No,” was all she said.

James refrained from asking what was wrong, because the list was rather long, and he’d been there for most of it.

He sat down next to her and pulled her against him.

She took a shuddering breath.

“Why did they have to die?” she asked in between gasps.

Dumbledore looked around, making sure everyone was going to live for the next few minutes.

His eyes lingered on James and Lily for a moment, a sad look on his face.

Several of the witches and wizards who had just appeared ran to put out the flames of the house.

Lily’s parents were in there, their bodies were probably burned beyond recognition. James’s silently resolved to make sure that she didn’t see them.

Astrid was clinging to Remus and James could hear her crying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He was stroking her hair and murmuring back to her, “It’s okay, I’m okay, it’s all fine. We’re alive, we made it.”

Sirius and Mary were clinging to each other in the background.

James’s parents were crouched next to Moody, examining his leg. His calf was separated from his knee by a good half inch of air. 

“I think it’s going to have to stay off,” Eliza murmured.

“It was severed by Dark magic, there’s no way we can reattach it,” Clay told Moody in a kind voice.

Moody grunted and pointed his wand at his knee.

Slowly, skin began to heal over the end of the stump. Moody gritted his teeth and dealt with the pain silently.

Eliza Vanished the blood that was all over the ground and staining his clothes.

Dumbledore came over and stood, towering over James and Lily.

Lily sniffed, wiping her nose and stood up. After indulging in his exhaustion for a moment, James stood as well.

“Are you hurt?” The Headmaster asked.

Lily and James shook their heads no.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Dumbledore said.

“There was a dementor,” Lily said. “Which is how my mother died, and then James, Remus, Sirius and Peter showed up. James uh-” she paused. “He got rid of the dementor. Saved my life, and then my dad came, and he was under the Imperius curse. He distracted us until the Lestranges came. They killed my dad.” Her voice broke and she paused. “And then Voldemort came and then you showed up.”

“They threatened you?”

Lily nodded. “He said that if I didn’t go with him then everyone would suffer.”

She looked away, staring down the street at something James couldn’t see.

Behind Dumbledore the flames in the house were going down. 

Mary walked over and put an arm around Lily, pushing James away inadvertently.

He watched numbly as Mary put her arms around her friend.

James looked down. The ground was looking very comfortable, maybe he could just lie down and take a nap.

“May I talk to Lily privately?” Dumbledore asked James and Mary kindly.

They both nodded, Mary going back to talk to Sirius. James wandered over to talk to his mother, who was standing and staring at the blackened remains of Lily’s house.

“Hell of a fight,” James sighed.

“Language,” Eliza said absently.

James laughed. It was surprising that he still could laugh, after everything that had happened. 

“Thanks for coming,” he said after a while.

“Of course, we wouldn’t let you fight alone.”

The flames were mostly gone. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air and James found himself wondering where Lily and Petunia could stay.

Petunia was eighteen, Lily was seventeen, so they were both of age. But they were also dirt poor.

“You love her don’t you?” Eliza asked suddenly, looking over at Lily.

Dumbledore was saying something to her, and Lily was nodding. She wiped away a few tears as she stared at the ground.

James smiled at her. “She doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to get married,” he said.

Eliza smiled. “When did you decide that?”

“A couple years ago,” James said, and didn’t elaborate any more.

The truth was, it was a long time ago when she’d called him a jerk when they were twelve. He didn’t know why, but that was the moment when he knew he had to have her and nobody else. So he’d spent the last five years fighting for her. Literally fighting, in the past year, he thought, amused.

“Well,” Eliza said. “She’ll be a lovely daughter-in-law.”

James looked over at her. “Just like that?” he asked.

He’d expected her to say something else, anything else.

“Just like that.”

“You’re not going to say that it’s a big commitment to decide who to marry and that I’m only seventeen for Merlin’s sake, how am I supposed to know who the hell to spend the rest of my life with?”

“I married your father when I was seventeen,” Eliza shrugged. “And how many times have you jumped into fights to protect her?”

“This is the third.”

His mother nodded seriously. “I think you’re already committed.”

“Well,” James said. “Now all I have to do is convince her to go out with me.” The task, at that moment, seemed monumental. He really wanted to sleep.

They stayed silent for a long moment.

“How’s Moody?” James asked.

“He’ll be fine,” she said. “He’ll have to use a wooden leg, but I suspect he’ll just think that adds more mystery to his presence.”

“How did he know to get here so fast?” James asked. “Everyone else was really late.”

“He was at our house. We were talking about the Order,” Eliza looked down at the ground.

“What about it?” James asked.

“You know I can’t say. You’re not in the Order yet, James.”

“I should be.”

“You sound like a child having a temper tantrum, that’s not exactly going to convince anyone.”

“Mum, I’ve been in three fights that actual members of the Order were not there for. I think that entitles me into honorary membership at least.”

“Convince Dumbledore,” was all she said. “Lily’s coming over.”

James looked around and met her halfway. 

“What are you upset about?” She said it as an accusatory statement.

“Nothing,” he muttered. 

“I need to go back to your house to get Petunia,” she said. “But I don’t know the exact location.”

“Okay,” James held his hand out.

She stared at it. “I was thinking you could just tell me.”

“Absolutely not,” James said firmly. “You’re not going anywhere alone for the rest of your life.”

“That’s a bit excessive.”

“Okay, well until, Voldemort’s dead then.”

She scowled at him.

“I bet Dumbledore told you the same thing,” he said.

She slapped her palm against his. “I hate you,” she said.

“Liar.”

James disapparated.

 

They appeared down the street from James’s house. 

Lily dropped his hand as soon as she could, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jeans. 

He found himself at a loss as to what to say. Small talk wasn’t really an option, and he didn’t want to talk about the fight they’d just gone through.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” he said.

She didn’t change her posture at all, just kept walking with her head down. He realized that that was probably the wrong thing to say.

“I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine, James. It’s fine.”

He shut his mouth and continued walking. “It’s this one,” he mumbled.

He walked up to the front door and opened it for her.

She walked in, and James followed right behind her. 

The scene which met their eyes was not one that was expected. Two Death Eaters were standing in front of Peter, who had his wand out and was facing them. Behind Peter, Petunia was laying at an awkward angle on the floor.

“Tuney?” Lily asked. Her voice was raw, and it was clear that Lily thought she had lost her final family member.

“She’s alive,” James said quickly.

The two Death Eaters looked around at their voices and then disapparated.

Peter lowered his wand, stuffing it in his back pocket and then leaning over Petunia.

“They hit her with some sort of jinx, I don’t know what it was.”

“ _Finite,_ ” James tried.

It worked, Petunia woke up, blinking slightly. Her eyes focused on Lily, and she sat up slowly.

“So, you’re not dead,” Petunia said flatly.

“No,” Lily answered warily.

Petunia stood up, backing up to sit on the couch. “Are they gone?” she asked Peter. He nodded.

“They all left,” Lily said. “They probably won’t try again for a while.”

“And what happens when they do?” Petunia asked. “Do I die next time? Does he?” she pointed towards James. 

“No one’s going to die,” James said firmly.

“My parents are dead!” Petunia stood up. “Because of her!” She pointed at Lily.

“Don’t say that,” James said, stepping forward and pushing her wrist down. Petunia struggled, backing away from his grip.

Lily pulled him back.

James stood there, in between to the two sisters. 

“I’m staying at Mary’s house tonight, if you want to come with me,” Lily told her sister stiffly.

“No thank you,” Petunia answered. “I’ll go to Vernon’s.”

Lily pressed her lips together. “I’ll take you,” she said, offering her hand.

Petunia backed away. “I’m not going with you.”

“I’ll take you,” Peter said suddenly. 

Petunia looked at him uncertainly, but when he offered her his hand, she took it. James saw Lily’s face fall a little bit.

“This is going to feel weird,” Peter told her. 

Petunia took a deep breath and nodded. They disappeared with a _pop._

James reached out towards Lily, but she backed away, shaking her head. She walked out into the street, taking in gasps of the cold air.

James followed her. 

“Come on,” he said quietly. “I’ll take you to Mary’s.”

She nodded, swallowing and sniffing. She took his hand, and they disapparated as well.

This time, when they appeared on a different street, Lily didn’t let go of James’s hand right away.

He wanted to say something, but everything that came to mind was either terribly cheesy or simply terrible.

When she turned into him, he held her in his arms for several long minutes. Her frame was shaking with small sobs, and she was clutching fistfuls of his jacket at the small of his back.

He had never seen Lily so broken, and he didn’t like it. 

She pulled away and began to walk towards Mary’s house.

“Lily,” he called, and she turned around. He stepped closer so he could see her eyes. “Please, please don’t go anywhere without another witch or wizard. I’m begging you.” She nodded. “And write me, or come by, anytime. If you need to talk.”

She nodded again. “Thank you, James.”

She turned away and walking into Mary’s house.

As James disapparated back to his own house, he couldn’t help but feel like that was meant to be a final goodbye.


	17. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K so IMPORTANT note: I'm not actually writing more, I just realized that I had more chapters than I had uploaded so now you get them!

The spell hit Peter in the chest and it felt like his heart was constricting. He fell over backwards, his chest folding in on himself. 

Merlin’s beard, it hurt.

No one knelt next to him to see if he was okay, no one looked twice at him. His wand lay somewhere behind him so he couldn’t even try to heal himself, even if he knew the right spell. 

It felt like his very atoms were caving in on themselves until he couldn’t even move for fear of inviting more pain. 

Voldemort appeared, and he didn’t even care. He only cared when Dumbledore swept them all towards the wall, causing Peter to slam against the wall. 

For the love of the Phoenix and the Sphinx, that _hurt._

His wand conveniently clattered against the floor at his feet, and even though every instinct told him not to move, Peter bent down and picked it up.

“ _Finite,”_ he gasped. 

The spell was weak and wasn’t specific enough to actually cure him, but it helped immensely.

The pain decreased a drastic level, until it only felt like pins were being stick into every cell of his body.

Sirius pulled Peter’s arm around his shoulder, and pulled him out of the house.

He staggered along, trying to keep up.

“I don’t like them,” he heard Sirius say, pointing towards the Death Eaters that were at the end of the street. 

Peter would have groaned if he had the mental capacity for that. 

“Malfoy,” James muttered, nodding towards Lucius.

Sirius: “And Avery. He helped kill the Bones.”

James: “Nott’s here too. I saw his picture in the Prophet the other day.”

Remus: “And Greyback. He’s mine.”

James: “This is going to be a proper fight, now isn’t it?”

Peter swayed and Sirius clutched at him to keep him upright. It was very hard to concentrate right then.

Bellatrix laughed, high and malicious. “You didn’t think we’d just let you disappear, did you?” Bellatrix shrieked.

Mary tried to step away from Bellatrix, which brought her closer to Sirius, who half-stepped in front of her, dragging Peter along with him.

Petunia: “Oh, God, we’re going to die.”

Lily: “We are not going to die. Do you understand me?” She shook her sister’s shoulders slightly, making sure she was listening to her. 

Lily stepped over to Sirius, “Give me Peter.”

Sirius: “What?”

Lily: “Give me Peter.”

Sirius shrugged Peter off of his shoulder slowly. He staggered over to Lily, who pulled his arm around her shoulders and took on his weight for him. 

She dragged him over to Petunia. “Take him,” she said.

Petunia: “What?” 

Lily shoved Peter onto Petunia. She staggered under his weight for a moment and then took it. Peter swayed slightly, trying to maintain his balance. James was talking in the background, distracting the Death Eaters.

“Lucius, it’s been a while,” James said.

Lily addressed Peter again, he struggled to focus on her. “Take her to the Potter’s, stay with her, don’t leave and don’t let anyone touch her, you hear me?” 

Peter nodded, he thought he understood those instructions. They were simple enough, go back to James’s house. 

Lily: “Send James’s parents here, we can use the help. And tell them to call as much of the Order as they can, if Dumbledore hasn’t done it already. I have a feeling that more Death Eaters will show up.” She took a deep breath. “Did you pass your apparition test?”

“‘M not sefenteen yet,” Peter mumbled.

Lily: “Oh, Merlin. Well, try not to splinch yourself.”

Petunia (scared): “What’s splinching?” 

Lily spared her sister a glance. She put her hand on Petunia’s upper arm and squeezed. “I love you,” she said.

Petunia opened her mouth wordlessly, and stood silent for a second.

“Go,” Lily told Peter.

He took in a shuddering breath- his lungs did not seem to want to work properly- and started to turn.

He focused on James’s house as hard as he possible could.

They ended up down the street. 

 Peter grinned a little, proud that he’d managed it when he could hardly remember his own name.

He staggered down the street, leaning heavily on Petunia. She didn’t say anything that he could hear. She was mumbling under her breath.

“God, is it always like this?” She asked.

“No, sometimes it’s worse,” Peter said, thinking of nights where they hadn’t slept and leading Astrid back to the castle while a Werewolf was snarling after them. 

Petunia shuddered. “How do you live with it?”

“I just do,” Peter said, dragging himself to the front door.

He pounded on it, and there were footsteps coming to the door, and then it was pulled open by Eliza.

“What happened?” she asked, flabbergasted.

“There’re Death Eaters,” he said tiredly.

She pointed her wand at him, and a breeze whooshed over him, making him feel so much better. The pain went away and he could stand up again.

“Death Eaters showed up, this is Petunia, Lily’s sister, I’m supposed to stay with her, if you and Mr. Potter would go help them.”

“What’s the address,” Eliza asked crisply, shooing them into the room. 

Two men sat at the kitchen table. One was Mr. Potter, the other was a man that Peter didn’t know. He had an eye that was focused on him, even though that seemed like it should be impossible.

Peter gave them the address and they twisted on the spot, leaving no further instructions.

*   *   *

The fight was bad, but it was not disastrous, Remus remembered thinking. They seemed to be holding their own quite well for a bunch of teenagers. 

Of course, it was a blessing when the three adults showed up and started to fight with them.

And then the worst possible thing that could happen happened. 

“A nice little surprise came in the fireplace while Dumbledore and I were talking,” Voldemort said.

Remus felt his heart rate pick up, fluttering against his ribs. 

Astrid walked out of the house of her own power. Her head was tilted strangely, and she walked with a stiffness, as if she were questioning her own movements.

“Hello,” she said.

Remus took a step forward. She was staring at him, and he had to go to her, of course he did. He had to go to her and he had to kill Voldemort so that he had no power over her.

Sirius caught his arm.

Remus looked back at him, Sirius shook his head no.

Remus took a deep breath. 

Astrid looked around at the rest of them, and then she raised her wand. The end pointed straight at Remus’s chest.

He blinked once. He considered defending himself, gave it serious thought for a moment, but the thought of cursing or jinxing her-

“ _Cruico,_ ” she whispered.

He dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. Suddenly he understood why James had nightmares about the time he was hit with the curse.

He didn’t want to yell, he didn’t want to make a sound, that would hurt Astrid so much. She would know how painful it was. 

But he couldn’t help it. The screams clawed their way up his throat and into the air, dancing down the street and echoing back.

In the corner of his eye, he saw James raise his wand, pointing it towards Astrid.

_No_ , he thought. _No._

He had dropped his wand, he couldn’t stop James.

Suddenly the pain stopped and Remus stopped yelling, laying there panting for breath in the frigid air.

“No. _NO!”_ Astrid yelled, she was crying.

Voldemort raised his wand towards her. 

“No,” Remus whispered, and he began to search for his wand frantically. He couldn’t hurt her, Merlin, please, don’t let her be hurt.

Sirius and James stepped forward.

“Don’t touch her,” Sirius said.

Remus’s fingers closed around the end of his wand and he nearly cried in relief, he raised it, pointing it at the Dark Lord while he lay on the ground.

“No!” Astrid yelled again.

Dumbledore appeared next to James, and he waved his wand. Astrid glided over to Remus. He opened his arms and pulled her into his chest immediately. 

“Astrid, you’re okay,” he murmured. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

She was crying into his shirt. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hurt you, I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine,” he said, holding her tighter.

Members of the Order appeared at either end of the street. “I’m perfectly fine,” he said as the Death Eaters disapparated. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She was pressing her face into his shirt. He hooked his hand behind her knee, pulling her up into his lap more securely. 

His fingers lingered, tracing patterns on her thigh.

She shivered.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“Astrid, I’m fine, honestly.” He pulled her face up so that she would look at him.  “There is nothing wrong with me, no permanent damage, no injuries. I’m fine. You’re fine. We made it through alive.”

He looked down at her, intending to look at her face to see her expression, but he was distracted immediately by her legs, which were covered in burns.

His face must have twisted in a terrible way, because she asked, “What’s wrong?”

He reached for his wand, murmuring the healing spells he knew, and watched as her red blistered skin melted away.

When he was done he dropped his wand and held her close again.

“Thanks, that feels better.” 

“Come on,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”

“No floo powder?” she asked. “I don’t think I can deal with fire right now.”

He thought of the fire twisting up her legs and eating away at her skin, and he shuddered slightly.

“No floo powder,” he confirmed.

He didn’t particularly want to take her back to her house, but he did want to be away from all of these people. He wanted to be alone with Astrid.

He stood up, and took her hand. He took a step and vanished with a _crack._

They appeared in front her house. Remus had only been there once, a couple months ago when he came to meet her parents.

They hadn’t exactly been happy that she was dating someone who was three years older than her. He was sure that the events of this night wouldn’t help. Somehow they would find a way to blame it on him, he was sure.

Astrid turned towards him. 

“This isn’t going to be one of those times when you think that we should break up for our safety right?” She was wearing an uncertain look on her face.

“Merlin, no,” he said. “Absolutely not. We’d be in this fight anyway, because You-Know-Who is coming after anyone not on his side anyway.”

Her face cleared immediately, clearly she had been worried about it.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

He shook his head. “Stop apologizing.”

“But I feel terrible.”

“It wasn’t you,” he said, pushing the hair back from her face. 

“But it was, I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“Yes and you stopped.”

“Remus.”

“Astrid.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back, they stood there for a minute, looking at each other and each smiling wider in turn.

“I love you,” he said. “There, I’ve said it. Now I don’t have to worry about it popping out of my mouth anymore. I love you.”

The simple knowledge of the statement was enough to make him grin. Yes, he loved her.

She was standing in front of him, her mouth hanging open, and then she shut it, pressing her lips together until they were so thin he could hardly see them.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

He nodded, slightly perplexed. Would he lie about that?

“I’m standing in front of you, feeling terribly guilty for _torturing_ you and you tell me that you love me like that’s somehow going to make me feel better for making you writhe in pain in front of me?”

Remus was unsure of how to react to that.

She pushed against his chest, making him stumble backwards slightly.

“You bloody idiot,” she said; and then she was kissing him so that he couldn’t breathe. 

His hands slid to her hips and pulled her closer. Her arms twined around his neck, pulling herself up to him. 

The smell of smoke was heavy in their noses, making them light headed. The bottom of her skirt was charred from the fire in the house. It ended mid-calf, which Remus knew that she would never wear a skirt that short normally.

She stepped away too soon, saying, “I love you,” in return. 

He grinned.

It was very difficult to say goodnight. 

*  *  *

Sirius was not the kind of person to give or receive physical comfort, and especially not after a fight.

Mostly because the idea of death seemed farfetched to him, even after watching two people die tonight. He was young, he was invincible.

Mary evidently did not feel that way, if her actions were any indication. She was clinging to him.

He frowned, feeling almost annoyed, but it was softened by affection. 

Adrenaline was running through his body, and it would stay there until early morning when he finally fell asleep. He was not looking forward to lying there in the dark staring at the ceiling that he couldn’t see. 

Mary let go eventually, running over to Lily and crashing into her, making James step away from her.

James looked over and they made eye contact for a moment, each nodding. Each said, without words, _‘Are you okay?’ ‘I’m okay.’_

And that was all they needed. Mary came back, sniffling a little bit.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“What is she going to do now?” she asked, looking towards Lily, who was talking to Dumbledore.

“Keep living,” Sirius shrugged. “That’s all there is.”

Mary frowned at him. “I don’t understand you sometimes.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes, Mary, I think that that’s the point.”

She scowled at him, no doubt thinking that this was something unhealthy in their relationship that they would have to have an extended discussion about later, but frankly, Sirius didn’t care.

Mary didn’t understand him, and that was alright. He didn’t need to be understood. 

He took her hand, to make her feel better, and she smiled up at him. It was a soft tentative smile and it faltered as Moody groaned in pain.

“We’re going to be fine,” Sirius stated. 

“Maybe,” Mary responded, biting at her bottom lip as she looked over the damage of the street.

The house was still smoking behind them slightly.

“Definitely,” Sirius said firmly.

She looked up at him, and concern was clearly written all over her face. 

Sirius seriously considered kissing her right then. She was looking up with him with her bottom lip wedged between her teeth and her blue eyes were wide with worry. She looked the best that he had ever seen her, and his throat tightened as he looked down at her.

Then he cleared his throat with a loud noise and looked away. He didn’t want their first kiss to be adrenaline filled and right after a near death experience. He’d rather have it take place after a long day with their friends and laughing about something stupid, and he’d rather have take place on a day where they hadn’t seen death come and take his captives and a man wasn’t amputating his own leg behind them and he wanted it to take place on a day that was just better than this one.

Which was not a particularly demanding order.

So Sirius didn’t kiss her that night, and with the lives that they were leading, it didn’t seem like he would be kissing her anytime soon either.

And that was just fine. 

Mary leaned into him slightly, and he snaked his arm around her waist, abandoning his solitary attitude and giving into her, as he always did.

 *   *   *

Petunia walked over to the couch and sank down on it, placing her head in her hands.

She didn’t say anything, just stared at the carpet.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Peter said, thinking of how drastically his life changed when his mother died and how drastically it would change again if his father died. 

Petunia nodded, and stayed silent. 

Peter looked around the room, finally going to the kitchen and rooting around in the pantry for a second. Being cursed made him hungry.

He came back with crackers in his hand and one stuffed in his mouth.

He dropped the crackers when he saw two people standing in the living room, wands pointed at Petunia, who was lying inert on the floor.

They turned to him. 

Peter recognized them from the wanted posters, one of them was Yaxley, another was Rosier.

“Peter, isn’t it?” Rosier said pleasantly, wiping his wand on his sleeve as if it were covered in blood.

Peter nodded.

“You’re Pettigrew’s boy,” Yaxley realized.

Peter nodded again.

“We know what he does to you,” Rosier murmured. “The Dark Lord told us.” The Death Eater paused for dramatic effect. “He told us to help you.”

Peter’s eyes darted to Rosier, but he didn’t say anything. 

“You know it’s not normal,” Rosier said. “You know that most parents don’t give you a beating every time you make one small mistake.”

Peter stiffened as Rosier circled around him. 

Peter wanted to be brave, he wanted to laugh in their faces and fight them off single-handedly. But he wasn’t James. He wasn’t Sirius. He wasn’t Remus. 

He was Peter Pettigrew, a boy who trembled at the thought of going home at Christmas time and who cried in relief at going to a friend’s house instead. 

“How often does he beat you?” Yaxley asked, grinning. “Once a week? Twice a week? Every day?”

Peter didn’t say anything, but he could almost see his father looming over him, he could almost feel the fists hit his ribs and break his nose.

“I’ll bet he enjoys it,” Yaxley sounded like he would enjoy beating someone, he sounded like he was longing for the opportunity.

Rosier sent him a sharp look.

“I’ll bet you don’t enjoy it,” Rosier murmured.

Peter’s fingers tightened around the end of his wand. 

“I bet you wish you could see him suffer.” Rosier stood in front of him, staring into his eyes, his mouth set in a hard line.

“Yes,” Peter whispered. There was no point in denying it. He wanted to see his father burn in hell for the rest of time.

“You want him gone,” Rosier stated.

“Yes,” Peter whispered again.

“You want him dead.”

“Yes.”

“We can take care of that for you,” Yaxley said. “We can make him suffer, we can kill him and launch the Dark Mark into the sky above your house and no one will ever know that you had any hand in it.”

Peter looked at them.

“No,” he said. He couldn’t- _He couldn’t_ ally with Death Eaters. If he did, there would be no going back.

“Don’t you want him out of your life?” Rosier asked.

Peter nodded.

“Then let us do this for you.”

And Peter couldn’t help it, he imagined what it would be like if he woke up one morning and his father was gone. He imagined a different life. He imagined a life where he didn’t live in fear, and where he didn’t have to heal himself every night.

“Okay,” he said, the word slipped out of his mouth before he could even stop it. 

A light of triumph came into Rosier and Yaxley’s eyes.

“The Dark Lord planned this for you,” Rosier said. “He wanted you to know that he will always help solve your problems. As long as you return the favor.”

Peter stared at him.

“If we do this,” Rosier continued, “you will owe us one favor. One that we can call in at any time, and you will be unable to refuse.”

“Done,” Peter said. He had tasted freedom, and he wanted it badly.

Rosier held out his hand. 

“Then swear on it.”

Peter shook his hand once and dropped it, “I swear,” he said.

Rosier shook his head, “That’s not what I meant. I meant the Unbreakable Vow.”

The Death Eater held out his hand again. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Peter took his hand.

Yaxley moved to stand over them, his wand in his hand and a gleam in his eye. 

“Do you swear to kill my father within the month?” Peter asked Rosier.

“I do,” Rosier answered.

A jet of golden flame shot out of Yaxley’s wand and wrapped around their wrists in a continuous loop.

“Do you promise to make him suffer?”

“I do,” Rosier said, and Peter’s heart leapt in his chest.

Another flame emerged from Yaxley’s wand, looping around the other one and forming a rope.

“In return, do you promise to owe us a favor, one which we can call in at anytime and do you swear to fulfill this favor in the time frame that we require?”

Peter’s mouth went dry and he licked his lips.

“I do.”

And the third golden flame appeared at the end of the wand and twisted itself around the other two, making a braid that was unbroken. 

Peter let go of Rosier’s hand.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr if you want to follow, I'll be posting updates there too, I think. straightenshisbowtie.tumblr.com


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